After Evangelion: The Shinji Chronicles
by Nighthawk Imac
Summary: After the last angel attack, Shinji moved to the country in search of a normal life. But he finds nothing but trouble; Street races by night and schoolyard relationships by day, all while trying to keep his past buried. But it can’t last forever. Pls R
1. Episode 00: Foreword

**Disclaimer **

_I do not have or ever have retained ownerships of the rights to Neon Genesis Evangelion and its subsequent characters belonging to the show, nor have I ever been able to work out a way in which one can obtain ownership. All sequent characters created by me may infer references to various other works, but their character design for the purpose of this work is considered original and therefore property of me and the shareholders of my group. __I retain the right to alter the details of the show and ignore events if I choose, but only in the common sense that this makes logical sense. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental._

**Foreword **

This is my second go at this story, the original was first released of this story in February 2006, and after only 4 chapters I had managed to write myself into a corner and the story subsequently died. So in July 2006, I had returned to my project and decided to start afresh and change the whole story into a new angle. This new version has so far done remarkably better and I'm pleased to see the feedback as a result.

Thank you for your input and please enjoy.

_Nighthawk_Imac_

* * *

**History**

09/07/2006: Foreword

09/07/2006: Episode 01 Uploaded

15/07/2006: Episode 02 Uploaded

23/07/2006: Episode 03 Uploaded

29/07/2006: Episode 04 Uploaded

10/08/2006: Episode 05 Uploaded

27/10/2006: Episode 06 Uploaded

10/11/2006: Episode 07 Uploaded

26/11/2006: Episode 08 Uploaded

08/01/2007: Episode 09 Uploaded

08/03/2007: Episode 10 Uploaded

25/09/2007: Episode 11 Uploaded

11/10/2007: Episode 12 Uploaded

28/01/2008: Episode 13 Uploaded

31/01/2008: Episode 14 Uploaded

02/02/2008: Episode 15 Uploaded

14/02/2008: Episode 16 Uploaded

06/06/2008: Episode 17 Uploaded

17/03/2009: Episode 18 Uploaded

20/03/2009: Episode 19 Uploaded

01/07/2009: Foreword Updated

02/07/2009: Episode 20 Uploaded

03/07/2009: **Block I upgrade program** Episode 01 Refurbished

**  


* * *

****  
**


	2. Episode 01: Into the country

**After Evangelion**

**Episode 1: Into the country**

"…it's getting colder again" Shinji sighed as he opened the door.

It was cold for a morning for September; the wind down the narrow street was brisk and chilly. The weather was a hopeful sign that the hot summer was now over and Shinji knew it meant he would be experiencing his second winter in a matter of months. Despite how people felt towards the colder weather in the past, those who hadn't experienced it before second impact were quietly surprised last year when in started to snow in the middle of December for the first time in fifteen years. But weather didn't really matter at the moment; Shinji had a job to do. As per usual, Shinji had the duty of delivering the early morning load to the hot springs along the mountain road leading into Karasuyama-2, Tochigi Prefecture.

Two years; the distance of time since the last angel wrecked havoc on the Tokyo-3; much to the collective relief of everyone. People who by this point were both stressed, exhausted, and felt the initial delusion of their mission fading away; they were close to breaking point by the time of the last angel; Kaworu, and his death couldn't have come at a better time. For one Shinji at this point had it with NERV and his father; the man who gave him life, who had often jested at taking it away; had taken Shinji to the extreme depths of a confused and self inflicting despair. The end of the war of the angels had at that moment created an escape and Shinji's commission with NERV ended as his father discarded his son to the notions in the back of his twisted mind. He hadn't quite walked away empty handed though; the exchange of his emotions, his dignity, his failure to protect the life of one girl and the sanity of the other; Shinji was given a substantial sum of cash as an equal exchange for his sins.

But like all rewards, the payment for his sins became useful for his ultimate escape tom Tokyo-3, his escape from the grasp of his father. Two years of distance later and it felt like a distant memory; no longer the problem it had felt like, the end results since those times had given to Shinji a new lease on life. He didn't mind this at all; no one in the world could disturb him ever again, and he was finally far beyond the reach from the Evangelion.

"Shinji, I forgot this crate!" a very tired Misato yelled from the back door as she lugged a suitcase size box out the door, careful not to tip it "I forgot about the extra order Ms Kagura-san faxed through yesterday…she has a football team staying with her"

"Alright, but I think the car is already full" Shinji replied. Looked in the boot of the car, he however could see quite clearly that they would be able to squeeze this box in. There always was some room for another box, all the more so since it meant extra money for this late order. Their store only made a very slim profit from these deliveries as it was.

"I don't care, she paid me double for this, don't make her come all the way down here and grab my money back!" Misato managed to drop the box on top of the pile, bringing the number of boxes to five, and now a full load. She swept back her brow of sweat and stepped back as Shinji slammed the boot hatch down.

Misato like Shinji and like many staff at NERV had become instantly redundant as their purposes became obsolete. As soon as the last repairs were made to Tokyo-3, Gendo started to remove all the useless bodies in his organization. The Evangelion pilots, now redundant were removed from active service and were all separated and sent on their way. The next step was lead not by Gendo, but by SEELE, the task had involved the replacement of commanders and scientists in all the operation departments. While this had involved some unfortunate ends, most of the dismissals deemed ended up in the form of a redundancy pension and a death threat warning about slipping out secrets.

Misato, now unemployed decided it was time to up and leave Tokyo-3. Taking a look at the directions her friends were going, into similar fields of their profession, Misato; together with custody over Shinji, decided to take the most out of world career change in her life. From Operations commander of NERV's Evangelions to a small business owner in the quaintest town she could find. Shinji had come along because despite his money resulted from his retirement, really didn't have anywhere to go. Without much of a sales pitch, Misato managed to sell Shinji on the idea and they both decided to move to the quiet hot spring hills in the country of Karasuyama-2, Tochigi Prefecture.

Despite the belief that they would be starting a bakery or something in that field, Misato had stayed true to her absurd and probably Alcohol influenced plan. The two of them obtained a small two level building in the west side of the town amongst the many local and opened a Tofu Delivery business, the combined retirement had paid off the building and neither had to ever worry about a bank loan as a result, but by the time they had set themselves up, both Shinji and Misato were no longer as well off as their redundancy payments may have implied.

The business had started off slowly enough and with only themselves to learn the trade of produce handling, making, delivering and business handling; both Misato and Shinji had made an earnest attempt at it. To make it possible for the deliveries to be made without a single reliance on the driving skills of Misato, she had to talk to some old friends still in a position of _reliable services_ to issue Shinji with a drivers license that would make his legitimate driving status- while fake, at least plausible to the passive observer.

At first, Misato was neither able to make product she intended to sell, nor did she know the first thing about running a business. But with careful, and some would say strained patient learning from Shinji who knew how to make it at commercial quality. It was just another one of his experiences from his time growing up in Osaka-2, where he had learnt from an old man had graded him just as poorly until he improved his efforts. However in due time, Just as Shinji had learnt when he was 12, Misato had managed to learn the same and her batches eventually became good enough to be sold commercially.

"Alright, that'll do" Misato slammed the hatchback of the car shut and walked up to the driver side window. Inside, Shinji was drinking his morning dose of coffee in his usual stare thought the windshield and upwards towards the still star filled early morning sky. It was a quarter to five or something. He wished he was still in bed at this hour, but Misato counted on him in the morning just as he counted on her to deliver the afternoon batches.

"Shinji, hurry up drinking that coffee, its time to go" Misato leaned down and looked at the boy "Its 4:47am, try be back by 6:00am, and I should have breakfast ready for you"

"I'm alright Misato-san" Shinji paused to finish the last of his coffee and handed the mug over to Misato "I'll be back by 6:00am, but only if you promise not to make breakfast"

Misato smiled down at Shinji, it didn't annoy her that Shinji said that, even if he had delivered it with a smugness that matched her own attempt at humor. But even after how far she'd become more become a more mature woman after her time at NERV, she still couldn't cook even pancakes.

"Go do your deliver" Misato smirked quietly before stepping back

Shinji put the car into gear and sped down the road quietly towards the mountains.

"Boy that kid has come along since then" Misato smiled to herself before yawning again. "It's too cold for this; I'm going to look for beer"

* * *

The car of choice selected to make the deliver was a full black second generation Toyota Trueno with the words _Katsuragi Tofu Shop_ stylized on the side in pink. The car wasn't the genuine deal AE86; a few years ago, and once the economy of the world was back on its feet, Toyota created a 25th anniversary edition of the famous vehicle. This new model however had a few differences, the now heavily outdated 4A-GEU with a much more powerful VVT-i engine.

It was also a pretty practical vehicle for the post-second impact market; the considerations of fuel consumption in the onset years of the second impact, when fuel shortages demanded that many customers to go for smaller engine vehicles and more cost effective options. While the AE-86 _second edition_ wasn't quite that effective in the field, it still provided the owner a fair exchange of fuel for the miles it travelled. Shinji had no complaints about the vehicle except for the crummy sign that the car had painted on. But his arguments had been voided; since Misato had traded in her beloved Blue sports car for this and it was her car after all.

Turning down Sora Avenue, Shinji press the accelerator down a bit more and used the empty streets of Karasuyama-2 to his advantage and sped down to the intersection where Cherry Blossom Avenue and Sora Avenue merged and became Mt. Kira Road. Bored already of the routine, he was thinking again about the day ahead. Shinji had a pretty busy day ahead. After a wake up at 4:30am already to make the morning delivery the hot springs along Mt Kira Road; Shinji would return, eat and get ready for and go to school. Once school was over, he and Kensuke would proceed to their real part time job at Mecha-gamers; a comic and gaming store chain that had set up shop in the central business district of Karasuyama-2.

This wasn't to say his current life was stressful or busy; compared to his old life in Tokyo-3, it was actually quite boring. But Shinji had long since come to accept the exchange of living a more relaxing life for the price of acceptance of a daily routine that lost its subtle uniqueness after repetition. But he wouldn't have had it any other way. Free from the restrictions and lifestyle of NERV, Shinji had finally healed his wounds from the mental damage in the Evangelion sync tests and other traumas. By the time that Shinji had experienced his white winter, Shinji's ensuing nightmares ceased, how that was accomplished was one of Shinji's best kept secrets, since he himself didn't know how he had done it.

Then last year; SEELE was publicly disclosed and a full scale investigation was pulled in to uncover the depth of conspiracy that surrounded them. He remembered vividly the day when the news announced his father and a good majority of SEELE's Top brass has been arrested. It made Misato glad she to no longer be apart of that organization, one she had once harped to Shinji about its vital importance to save the world. After that event, he had finally obtained the closure he wanted, seeing all those who caused sufferance to suffer themselves. But that was long since in the past, at least it felt like it now as Shinji cross the bridge and started his accent up the mountainside road.

Shinji looked out the window to his right, it would be about 5am by now; the late summer sun has already risen over the distant hills on the other side of the valley where Karasuyama-2 was. It was a warm glow of yellow that's aura beckoned the new and had started to erase the stars from the sky. Such a view every morning could make a poet of a simple peasant. But Shinji had long since lived with this view and his mind were on other things.

'Hmmm, I've got a classics test today; hope Mr. Ikusbi doesn't scold me again for not studying' Shinji thought as he turned into the first hot spring. His long day was about to begin.

* * *

"…And Remember, your tests are next month, so please start studying" the teacher kept droning on.

'Boredom, my familiar old friend' Shinji thought as he kept tapping his pen on the desk waiting for lunchtime. He wasn't alone in this thought; around him other student had the same hard time of finding this subject difficult to stay awake in. Given all that happened in the past 17 years; a generation of students had wondered how classics somehow, in the chaos and confusion of the aftermath of second impact, still exist to bore the students. Shinji had of course felt at home here, these country schools and its students shared the same laid back approach that he had come like. Of course like in every class, there was one exception, and her name Hikari Horaki.

'I wonder how she can keep that for so long' Shinji pondered as he stared at the girl sitting straight at her desk two rows in front and to the left one row. Her posture must've been giving her hell for the strain it's under to appear the perfect student. Shinji's eyes pondered to everyone else to compare her; everyone was slumping lazily writing their notes and a few had actually fallen asleep. The only clearly awake people in the class were Toji and Kensuke; fighting to stay wake and avoid another beating from Hikari later on, but even they were loosing their battle to find interest in this subject.

"Sakuraba-san, can you please take up all the text books and put them away" the teacher said in his droning slow old voice, even he was feeling the boredom of repeating this task, only in a country school would a teacher be allowed to act like this.

"Hai Sensei" a girl with long brownish hair spoke getting up from her seat, the once sapped energy had returned to her in an instant as she was given a psychical task.

Shinji closed his book 'Classics III' and left it on the corner of the desk. At last the lesson was coming to an end. Shinji seemed to find it in himself to awaken himself enough to look at least alive by the time the girl collected his book. He knew the reasons for his sluggish behavior, he was up until 10 and he was awake by 4:30, his lack of sleep contributed a genuine reason for his slow and relaxed behavior for most of the morning. Before he could return his head to the hard pillow of his desk, Shinji's new friends started to talk,

"Hey, what the hell are you moping about Shinji?" a girl next to him whispered,

"It's boring…" Shinji pondered under his breath, outside it was quite sunny now, a clear cloudless September day beckoned over the country. Shinji wished heartedly he could at least spend his boredom outside under a tree. He did so often on the weekends, grabbing his DAT player and some novel and go down to the lake that the town grew up on its banks. There he could be sitting under that large tree that was far from the centre of town where nobody really ventured. There he was the only place he could be truly alone with himself and the accompanying music of his DAT as he took in a gentle breeze flowing off the lake.

"What are you talking about" replied another male voice "after lunch is PE"

"I know Kazama-kun…but its just boring" Shinji replied as he slumped his head further towards the desk, with that, the three whispering students returned to silent amity and paid attention to the teacher as best as they could.

'…as I said before, the tests are scheduled for the 30th of this month and then again on the third of October, so start studying if you planning to pass the test" the teacher said just as the electronic buzzing bell started.

"Stand!" Hikari stood in to attention

Shinji and the rest of the half awake class did so, though in a much less diligent manner. It was however at least not as sloppy as you'd expect from a class were a quarter of the students were still sleeping. In the corner of the eye, Shinji could see how annoyed Hikari was with 'her' class. It had felt appropriate at the time for her to get the role of class representative, but Shinji even then knew and sighed about the prospect of studying under Hikari again. Shinji wondered sometimes wondered why Hikari bothered to keep up her strict and uptight routine. It didn't even seem to matter out here.

"Bow!" Hikari ordered again, again trying as much to sound like a drill sergeant as possible.

"Good Afternoon Sensei" Everyone said with more enthusiasm, all feeling the aura of Hikari's anger for their sloppiness.

"Dismissed!" Hikari said as the stood straight again.

The class had all sighed relief and crumbled back into their usual slumping stand to start walking out of the classroom and towards the lunch. Shinji complied with his own feelings of lunch as energy suddenly spawned out of nowhere. Shinji took the time to stretch his legs and get the cramps out of his legs, he was in no rush to get lunch, and he always made his own lunch in any case. After deciding to make for the door, he didn't have to walk no more then two steps before Shinji heard Toji calling for him in the hallway.

"Hey, sleeping you in class again?" Toji yelled,

"Don't worry, I'm coming" Shinji yawned as he slung his backpack on and walked out of the class to his friends waiting for him. Hikari looked annoyed as usual while everyone else was smirking.

"Let's go…before lunch break ends" Hikari replied,

"Alright" Shinji spoke yawning as he continued walking,

"Shinji Ikari, how can you be so tired, it's already midday and hot enough outside" Hikari continued to lecture them as they walked along "so why are you falling asleep?"

"I'm just not get a lot of sleep"

"Staying up late?"

"Not really, I'm bed by ten"

"Don't lie to her Shinji" spoke another voice from behind the group "you said to me that you got five hours sleep last night"

Nobody in the group didn't need to ask, they all knew it was Naoko Kawasumi who said that. Her and Kazuma Miyazaki were born and bred in the small town of Karasuyama-2 and had grown up has childhood friends. Kazuma was a wild fanatic for cars and technology in general while Naoko was on the school's athletic team. They became Shinji's first friends when he first moved to their small country town. At first they were just interested in talking to someone from Tokyo-3, but after seeing him troubled by a past trauma that never seemed heal; they had stuck close by and helped him out through his hardest transitions as he recovered. They never really knew it all though, Shinji was cautious to omit the fact that he was once an Evangelion pilot from NERV, but he had told them of the nightmares and the sleepless nights that resulted. As he healed, his appreciation for their company grew and he reached out to them as more than classmates.

When his sleeping patterns improved and his nightmares slowly faded out of commonality; Shinji and the two of them had become good friends, studying for exams together in the library, hanging out in town. That while Shinji always acted reserved in front of them, in fear of saying something he didn't want them to know, he had become so consumed into their friendly attitude with him that Shinji felt rather awkward for a week when his old friends had suddenly joined the class. Predictably one of the first things Shinji had done was sternly reminded them to keep his past a secret. With his first real calm social experience, he had at the same time become very protective of it. He prayed every night there would never have to be a time that Shinji would have to tell them his past.

"See!" Hikari replied on this new information, "when are you really going to bed?"

Shinji sighed "a little after ten, I'm just having trouble sleeping is all"

"Why didn't you say so?" Naoko asked

"Didn't want to worry you" Shinji lied

Despite all he had been through with his old friends and how much his new friends had helped him into adapting to a new lifestyle; because of his age, he never explained to them that he was driving at five in the morning. It was illegal for a start and Shinji had since learnt the importance of keeping secrets from his new friends and being wary of his old ones. If word got out that he was driving under age, it would be impossible for him to continue working or living in Karasuyama-2. Naoko and Kazuma knew about Misato however, though in official terms, they saw her as having adopted Shinji. Despite their own opinion on how lucky Shinji was to be living with Misato, they were not even aware of Misato's background and how it had interlinked with Shinji's past.

"Hey Shinji" Kazama-kun spoke "Everyone is going to the cafeteria first, you coming?"

"Not today. I'm going to sit outside" Shinji replied and looked out the window and at the nice large tree that he liked to sit under.

"You're crazy; it's hot as hell today" Naoko looked out the window.

"I'll be okay"

"Alright" Hikari replied before sternly reminding "just remember to get at PE on time"

Shinji sighed and walked outside to the lone tree at the edge of the school yard. Despite Kazuma's belief that it was cooler inside in the cafeteria, Shinji felt that this was a much more comfortable place. The high school was the top of a hill, its fields and classroom windows facing north towards the lake. From the tree, Shinji had an almost uninterrupted view of Karasuyama-2, the lake and the other mountains in the locale; however he couldn't see the beach that strode along the south bank- that was obscured by the town that had grown up here. From here, it was quiet and even cooler then he expected, it was perfect place to snooze at lunch time.

Shinji started playing is trusty old DAT player and sat back to relax. He had an hour to snooze before he had to get ready for PE. With the sound of string chamber music, he slowly slipped out and into a sleep; but it was a sleep he wouldn't get to enjoy fully, as the sound of gravel crunching interrupted the rhythm of his string music playing almost in time with the gusts of wind off the lake.

"You awake Shinji?" she spoke; then she lowered her voice when it was clear that Shinji had fallen asleep, but to her own surprise, he snapped his eyes opened, only to locate the voice that called for him.

"Oh…?" Shinji opened his eyes again, returning to reality again. "What's the matter Hikari?"

"I'm sorry; I didn't see you were asleep" Hikari sheepishly replied, quietly she stood there for a minute before she continued; "Can I sit down?"

"Sure" Shinji sat upright and hid his DAT player; it wasn't really allowed according to school rules. Hikari sat down a comfortable distance from Shinji and waited for the right moment to ask, at the same time, the class representative realized now why Shinji had come out here; the brisk winds coming off the lake provided a much cooler alternative to the cafeteria where everyone was crammed in under an air conditioner that constantly broke down.

"So what did you want to talk about?" Shinji asked, while he could see Hikari now enjoying his own secret pleasure, she had come for a reason.

"I have something for you" Hikari pulled out a white envelope and handed to Shinji "she sent me another letter this week"

Shinji took the letter out of her hand "Thank you"

So it was already that time of the month. Time certainly did fly; he didn't even have to ask Hikari who it was anymore. The distinct handwriting of someone who was college level, but had yet to master kanji; Asuka Langley Soryu. Shinji had come out on top in his departure from NERV, taking a retirement fund and Misato to the country, to forget about everyone he'd ever met. That had included with some regret the other two living pilots of the Evangelion program; Rei and Asuka. Rei was still under the official custody of Gendo Ikari, This insured that Rei could never leave him, after his arrest, Shinji had no idea what had happened to her. But Asuka had been deported back to Germany; despite an attempt to take out permanent residence and move to Japan.

Shinji started to read the letter, it was obliviously meant for Hikari as the wording indicated and the letters were always replete with blacked out paragraphs. Hikari looked at Shinji's face while he read the letter, she was always cautious about how these letters reminded him of his past, but even she couldn't deny him the information about her now. When Asuka was sent back to Germany, She started to write correspondent to Hikari, her only friend in Japan as some saw it. Hikari naturally replied, but never mentioned Shinji in her correspondences back to Asuka, it was a rule first enforced by herself, and upon the move to Karasuyama-2, a rule reinforced by Shinji. There was no way to predict how she would react to learn of him again after so many years.

Shinji finally finished reading the letter; it was warming to hear from her as usual. Hikari smiled, she knew how much Shinji actually missed her, it wasn't exactly something he would admit, but Shinji did for feel her absence more than anyone else and nobody had quite filled the gap, he'd become too close to Asuka in final days at NERV, and they both understood what they had been through.

"I hope she is doing okay" Shinji said before yawning,

"Well Asuka is capable of taking care of herself"

The cool breeze from the lake continued to pick up. Hikari felt the full gush of the cold wind hit her face. Shinji had something right about this place; it was so quiet and sported a rather unique view of their hometown and the surrounding landscape.

"It's so cool here" Hikari stretched her arms before she looking over to him "…Shinji ?"

Somehow Shinji had managed to slump back into a sleep holding the letter with both hands. It was the kind of weather that could make anyone tired, and soon enough Hikari felt it was best to let him sleep, lunch would end then and she would wake him up for PE class down at the pool. Hikari tried to ignore the same feelings that made Shinji fall asleep here but soon enough she felt tired and yawned; before Hikari knew it she was half asleep.

'It's only fifteen minutes, what's the worst that can happen?' Hikari didn't resist the urge and fell asleep. However, Hikari didn't notice how intoxicating this place was and how comfortable to sleep here. She slept through the bell even and it wasn't until she walked by that someone tried to wake her up.

"Hey, Class Rep, Shinji!" Naoko yelled,

"wha?...what is it Naoko" Hikari replied finally awaking from her short snooze,

"What is it? Your ten minutes late!"

Hikari heard that word 'late' and she sprung to her feet. Indeed it was ten minutes into the afternoon period, and what could have made this more embarrassing would be the entire swim class was standing a few meters away waiting patiently in their swimsuits for their class rep to wake up.

"Hurry up Class Rep" Naoko handed the class Hikari her swim bag,

"Thank You" Hikari looked over to Shinji, only to find that he wasn't their, "Where is…"

"Shinji, I saw him entering the changing rooms a few minutes ago with Kensuke"

Hikari felt so ashamed of herself; falling asleep like that and setting a bad example to the class as well. It never occurred to her that it really didn't matter and everyone wished that she would mellow out like they all had. Hikari snatched her own swim bag and sprinted to the changing rooms as fast as possible. After another five minutes later, the entire class as well as Shinji, Kensuke and Hikari were by the poolside waiting for the teacher to start.

"Alright, while I don't know why you were all so late, we'll try to get swim practice out of the way as soon as possible" the PE teacher replied with not even a complaint about being late to his class.

"Hai!" Everyone shouted

"Form into the same groups as last week and line up at the blocks!" the teacher instructed

"Hai!" Everyone shouted again and dispersed from their rows and down the side of the pool to the starting blocks. Hikari looked around and found Shinji with Kazuma and Kensuke walking off towards the diving blocks. Before she could make Shinji say sorry for not waking her up as well, Naoko caught up to Hikari.

"So what really happened back there?" Naoko asked,

"I'm sorry…I must've dozed off as well" Hikari tried to be as calm about it as possible.

"That's alright, we all doze of at some point…I do it all time!"

"I'd wish you were more diligent in class sometimes…" Hikari fumed at that truth,

"Anyway, Why were you talking to Shinji anyway?" the Naoko started to tease "Don't tell me you two are an item now!"

"No!" Hikari replied furiously, not aware that it was a joke, "I was giving him a letter that I got from one of his old friends"

"I guess I can believe that" the Naoko replied "but he refused to tell me what was on that letter"

"Naoko!" Hikari almost yelled, but the commotion of the classroom activity being performed "it's true, you have to believe me"

"Oh I do" Naoko smiled "why else would I be having fun teasing you over it"

Hikari didn't answer that, there was nothing to be gained at yelling at her for leading her into that trap. Naoko was just too good at this game and Hikari had been too naive from her years in Tokyo-3 to learn anything that could've saved her from the tomboy's teasing. In the other lane on the other side of the pool, Shinji was still yawning awake while his friends attempted to cite information out of him.

"Shinji-kun, you have to get more sleep, or didn't your little snooze with Hikari-san wake you up"

"Oh will you just drop that already; she came and gave me a letter…"

"That letter?" Kensuke replied "From that girl?"

"Yea, ill let you read it when we are at work later on"

"Alright…" Kensuke nodded in agreement "I wonder what Toji will do to you later on? You didn't forget that Hikari is Toji's right?"

"Huh?" Shinji asked "what did I…I did not! I'll tell him now that I didn't…"

Shinji stopped halfway though his sentence when Shinji remembered that Toji would be in library reading or something and he couldn't just turn around and say so. Because of his missing limbs, Toji was resigned from having to do PE and was pushed into the confines of the library to spend his afternoons. It was at times like this Shinji's past seemed to catch up to him, he had never stopped feeling guilty for causing that to him, even after all these years. Kensuke realized what he had said had triggered in Shinji

"Don't worry man; he knows you're too scared to take him on anyway for his girlfriend"

"Hai…" Shinji continued to think. Leaving with Kensuke no choice but whack him over the head,

"What did you do that for?!" Shinji replied angrily

"To rid of your thought and you're up Shinji, go beat those girls!"

Shinji stood up and got onto the starting block to and looked over to see who his opponents were; which like it or not was Hikari, that girl with the long brown hair; Reimi Sakuraba and another guy that Shinji never could seem to remember his name.

"Hey!" someone in class yelled "it's the snoozing couple!"

"Don't fall asleep in the pool!" Naoko laughed, not helping Hikari one bit. Shinji managed to ignore the comment. Hikari however didn't, and reacted with a blush.

"Oye" the teacher silenced the class "you have plenty of time afterwards to play soap opera _after_ my class!"

"Hai!" Everyone including Hikari replied,

"Start!" the teacher yelled

* * *

School ended at precisely the third bell of three o'clock and now many students of the local middle school and high school now made their way down to their various part time jobs in the business district. On cherry blossom avenue, which for this small town constituted the main road that went right through town as a video game/comic store called mecha games, it was one of several in the prefecture and it was fast starting to expand into neighboring prefectures. It was Kensuke's who convinced Shinji to work with him at the store, the job was easy and the pay was good; however, it was actually about Kensuke really getting an advance on some merchandise that came through the store. Shinji didn't actually mind the job either, even for the reasons why Kensuke applied. The store was moderately successful and the amount of customers that came through was steady, even if the highest number of customers in the store was only two or three people.

"So Shinji, where is the letter?" Kensuke said as he put away a box of DVD's into the back room, the store was not really well known for its selection of pop culture items like anime and manga, but the store had a strong following of customers for those products.

"Oh, it's in my bag" Shinji replied as he flicked though a gaming magazine at the counter

"You know, you should talk to her yourself instead of this secret correspondence through Hikari"

"No" Shinji answered harshly "me and Hikari agreed, its best she doesn't know I'm here"

"Shinji" Kensuke said as he returned to the counter "what harm is there is there in talking to her?"

"There is a lot actually" Shinji pulled up his school bag from under the counter and pulled out the envelope that Hikari gave to him. Generally Hikari didn't mind that Kensuke or Toji read the letters. In fact she encouraged they all tried to keep in contact with her, just not to actually reply on their own. While Asuka knew that Toki and Kensuke had moved with Hikari, it was only Hikari that actually talked to her. Shinji went to and took care of purchases while Kenuske read the letter himself, it took a good ten minutes before he finished,

"I still don't see why you should reply, she seems pretty fine to me"

"Well, if I know Asuka by now…" Shinji paused as he finished and saw off a bunch of middle school girls buying manga"…she wont want to hear from me"

"You're scared of talking to her, isn't that it?"

"No!" Shinji replied "it's that I'm sure as hell that Asuka doesn't want to hear about my boring life here, she is working for that modeling agency now, she doesn't want to hear that I live in a Tofu shop and work in a video game Store"

"Well, I suppose that would be kind of embarrassing to say" Kensuke admitted,

"Face it, me and Asuka…" Shinji interrupted as he put back the magazine under the counter "we have our own lives now"

Before their debate continued, a guy entered the store dressed with dark overalls and sunglasses, immediately Kensuke and Shinji thought shoplifter and took what they defined as 'battle stations'. Discreetly Shinji would stay by the only exit of the store and watch him carefully while Kensuke manned the counter on the closest side of the back door. If he wanted to steal something and make a runner, he'd have to get through either Shinji or Kensuke. Shinji started to arrange the front display of PS4 game boxes as well as all the promotional material of the new special edition Dark Blade 3 video game that everyone seemed to be looking forward to.

The stranger looked around the place before he noticed something he wanted to buy and he made his way over to the shoujo manga section. Kensuke and Shinji then knew that this guy was simply an overdressed Otaku. But to be on the safe side, the continued their watch of him while. Eventually the person left the store, but only after he bought a volume of something neither store clerk would be caught alive reading and another magazine of something that again neither store clerk could understand. Shinji sat down at the counter and sighed at the close call.

"What were we talking about?" Kensuke asked, having actually forgotten.

"Beats me"

They sat at the counter for another thirty minutes before deciding to play around with the PlayStation 4 console playing a racing game called 'Japan drifter challenge VI'

"So what car are you going to play?" Shinji said casually. Kensuke immediately selected his car of choice; a Nissan Silvia 13.

"Well, I'll pick this car then" Shinji randomly selected the AE86 Trueno

"Your funeral man" Kensuke laughed as he looked at the car he picked, then went through the prompts. It didn't seem to matter if they were playing the game, the boss was pretty laid back and they would pause the game if they had a customer.

'Okay Shinji, focus'

"Go!" the synthetic voice yelled,

Immediately the cars sped off towards the first corner, Shinji suddenly had his nerves strike into his hands. Suddenly it felt so natural; he shifted the gears and started to make his approach for the corner, He couldn't get in front, but somehow, Shinji was keeping up with him.

"What the hell? The AE86 is meant to old and slow" Kensuke commented aloud,

Shinji didn't care for that comment; in fact he didn't even hear it, suddenly the entire world blocked out except the screen and the RPM tachometer. The race was on a narrow road and made over taking slightly impossible but Shinji was keeping up, and for now it seemed that was in itself a feat.

'down to 2, up to 4, accelerate, decelerate, down to 2, up to 4 accelerate…' Shinji said to himself, the cars entered another corner, and again the AE86 was tight on the tail of the S-13.

'…down to 2, up to 4, accelerate, decelerate, down to 2, up to 4 accelerate…' Shinji's pattern continued, meanwhile a young girl entered the store and went up to the counter, unaware that the two gamer addicts at the PS4 console were the store clerks, she continued to ask for assistance,

'…down to 2, up to 4, accelerate…'

"Excuse me?"

'…down to 2, up to 4, accelerate…'

'Damnit, I can't be beaten like this! How is he doing it?'

The girl turned around the side of the aisle and noticed the two guys "Excuse me?"

"Damnit Shinji! How did you…"Kensuke turned around before she came face to face with a girl "…oh…hello…how may I help you"

Behind him, Shinji was quickly pretended to be reloading the trailer DVD and cleaning the controllers of the germs that passers by usually left behind. It was a bad attempt at pretending nothing happened but both clerks were not reprimanded by the customer.

"I'm sorry….I…" the girl fidgeted with the grocery bag she was holding as she remembered why she came down "I'm came here because my brother asked me to place an order for something"

Shinji and Kensuke looked at each other in confusion before they reacted, clearly their work today had an interesting visitor, just a tad shy of 5 foot 5 inches, long dark brown hair and blue eyes. To that Kensuke had added with his own eyes, a petite but not fragile frame, small chest size and a smile that was making him stutter in his reply, the definition of cute.

"Of course" Shinji interrupted Kensuke's stuttering "Do you want to pay full purchase or just a deposit for now?"

"Full payment of course" the girl replied as they walked back to the counter and rang up the till,

"was it for Dark Blade 3? Or for Barbie's Evangelion Adventure II"

Shinji shuddered for a moment at the latter title, how the hell did some American game company get it in their head that the Evangelion program was the perfect material for a kiddy game, and one aimed at little girls? What Shinji really was surprised was how it had obtained the rights for a sequel.

"No…for Dark Blade 3" she smiled

"Well, Dark Blade 3 for the PS4, that comes to 3200yen" Shinji replied and waited as to his amazement she pulled out the money and paid in full as promised, "I haven't seen you around before, you new to the area?"

"Yes, we just moved in yesterday, but how did you know?" the girl asked

"Well, I haven't seen you before and the only high school in Karasuyama-2 is the one on the top of the hill" Shinji explained "I take it you go to high school correct?"

"That's correct" she replied "but I won't be starting until next week"

"that's fair enough "Shinji smiled "anyway, if you come back next week, our shipment of Dark Blade 3 will be in by then, okay?"

"Yes, of course…thank you" She bowed again "good afternoon clerk-san"

The girl walked out of the store and onto the street and walked off. Kensuke who had actually stopped stuttering by the time she had completed her transaction and silently watched as she exited. He went to the door to look for the girl; spotting her at the intersection, once the lights changed, she crossed the street and behind a building, finally out of their sight. Shinji had walked up to the door to see what Kensuke was looking at and caught a last glimpse of her.

"You forgot to ask for her name" Kensuke spoke judging what just happened

"Why? We're only going to see her at school, we'll ask her then" Shinji answered

"Shinji, I don't know how you do it; First Rei, then Asuka, then Hikari and now her. What's your secret?"

"Shut up Kensuke" Shinji bonked his friend on the head before both of them walked back into the store.

* * *

Shinji walked down the quiet side street towards the small two story building where the black Toyota Trueno was parked in a small driveway. While it wasn't a lot, Both Shinji and Misato agreed it would do for them. The shop front was still open and inside; Misato was still at the counter starting to close up, obviously board at this time of the day, she had since completed the afternoon delivery and now was wondering if this was better then her old job, it was a passing thought that came to her daily as the routine bore into her; but before Misato could once again ignore the question as she did daily, The door opened with the bell clinging,

"Welcome to the Katsuragi Tofu…welcome back Shinji!" Misato cheerfully smiled,

While not technically his mother, Misato had become somewhat like one. It pleased Misato to have someone to live with, and after what she learnt about how Yui died at the hands of Gendo, Misato vowed that she would be the mother Shinji never had. While their relationship between them had became a confusing one in the last few years, some quirks about each other still were frustrating and created the feeling of roommates instead of a family, despite how much both proclaimed they were the latter.

"Hey Misato" Shinji said closing the door "how was your day?"

"Pretty good" Misato spoke as she started to remove the trays from the display and put it into the fridge. Shinji automatically started helping as he saw her start to close up; he walked inside to put his bag down and start helping close up the shop. Misato felt that if anything was strong in her relation with Shinji; it was running the tofu store. He practically taught her everything she had to know in a year how to make it, in the early days before Shinji got his job at Mecha Gamers, Shinji had to make a whole day's worth of commercial quality goods with only Misato assisting.

"Alright, that's done" Shinji spoke before he looked over for crates of Tofu for tomorrow morning's delivery. They were placed in another fridge by the door that made it easier for them to lift them over to the car.

"Well that's all done for the day" Misato replied as she started walking upstairs "let's go get dinner"

Shinji nodded as he turned out the lights to the store section of the building and joined Misato upstairs to the house section of the building. It was smaller than the apartment in Tokyo 3, but for the two; it was home. 3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom a kitchen and living room Misato had gone to some trouble decorating her room and the place exactly like it was when they were living in Tokyo-3. It couldn't all be quite the same, but it still felt the same, more importantly that also their pet Penguin PenPen, who's expensive fridge occupied a corner of the kitchen.

'Hmmm, now where is the rice?' Shinji wondered as he entered the kitchen. Misato only now remembered it was his night to cook. If she wanted to convince Shinji to not make dinner, now was the time.

"Shinji?" she talked sweetly, "What's for dinner? You know you don't _really_ have to cook tonight right?"

"Oh Misato, can you go down and fetch me some fried tofu" Shinji spoke as he gathered the rice container and the other ingredients from the fridge "I think we'll have fried tofu and miso with rice"

"What? Why?" Misato annoyed that someone half her age had not only better cooking skills, but was also making the decision on what to eat.

"It's good for your health" he bluntly replied

"But can't you talk one night off cooking?"

"No, if I had done that like you have asked me to do every night in the last year, you'd be 10 pounds heavier" Shinji replied before joking "…and what would Dr Ritsuko think of you if she saw you like that"

Misato cringed at the thought of that women laughing at her while she was begging for food like a far as everyone was concerned, nobody knew where the doctor was, the last thing Misato remember was having her friend bailed out of prison before her own departure. By having her acknowledged her as an intellectual asset, she could be pardoned and gave her an escape from NERV by means of dishonorable discharge. After that, Misato then arranged her to move to old Nagoya and work in a city hospital. The amount of strings she had to pull had resulted in Misato's name added to the redundant list and her departure was hastened. Misato then had requested that after she was transferred to Old Nagoya, that she never see her again. Misato started to regret saying that to a friend after awhile, after all; she had left behind a lot of the people she knew and Shinji and the bridge bunny trio were really all she knew now. For now Misato held out hope that she wouldn't loose anyone else the same way she lost her friends before.

Shinji finally found the miso and start cutting, much to Misato's displease; she gave up and went downstairs to find the Tofu that he asked for. Shinji felt like cooking was another quiet way of ignoring the world, for years; Shinji's response to a problem was found my means of cooking; somehow for him it was calming and distracted him off the topic. As Misato and later Asuka learnt, this resulted in Shinji being a talented cook.

"I'm back" Misato entered the

"Thanks, can you just put it there" Shinji replied,

"Alright" Misato walked out of the kitchen "I'll go and clean up the table"

"Thank you Misato" Shinji said as he unwrapped the tofu container.

Another fifteen minutes later, Shinji had dinner for two made and Misato managed to dispose of all the beer cans that littered the living room and the dinning room in the time he was cooking, her cleaning habits both now and during the day were still substandard and Shinji often bemoaned coming home and having to clean the house before cooking dinner, today wasn't so bad though.

"See, I can clean" Misato announced as she sat down

"Thank you" Shinji replied, "now don't mess it up"

They both sat down and started to eat their meal. Misato cringed at the food on her plate, but what made her not argue like she use to was that her body was in the best shape it had been in since college. Shinji's cooking habits had become the backbone of her new diet that cut down on the number of instant curry and noodles and reduced her daily intake of alcohol down to ten cans of beer a day instead of seemingly ten cans of beer per meal.

"So how was your day?"

"Boring"

"Boring?" Misato pouted "Here I am sitting here watching the shop all day and you go up and down the mountains delivering tofu, go to school and to your part time job, I'd love to swap places with you"

"Trust me, you wouldn't"

"Well I suppose this is better then before" Misato opened her ninth beer today "so what did happen today?"

"Nothing much, that hot springs lady complained again" Shinji spoke between eating, "Oh…and Hikari gave me a letter from Asuka"

"Oh? Why didn't you tell me that?"

Misato put her beer down and extended her hand for the letter. Shinji turned to the other chair next to him and pulled out a white envelope from his bag which was conveniently hanging off the back. He gave it over to Misato and she started to read it; she like Kensuke, took time reading the letter. Misato especially wanted to know what was written in the blacked out parts, but she would have to see Hikari about that.

"Sounds like she traveling a fair bit too"

"What do you mean?" Shinji stopped eating

"How do I know? Look at the envelope" Misato pointed at the postal ink stamp "last month she was in Bremen, two months before that, Dresden, and three months before that, she was living in Berlin-2"

Shinji looked at the postal Stamp carefully; it said that the letter came through South Berlin-1 postal exchange, meaning that Asuka was now in old Berlin. Misato was keen in spotting the most unusual problems that came across; it was one of her skills. Shinji put down the letter and continued to eat, not have thought of that before.

"I guess they have her moving about a lot now"

"Probably" Misato continued to eat 'well, I suppose its better thinking she's being a beggar on the street'

Misato and Shinji had both wondered about that; Asuka was known to lie, but both of them felt that Asuka had grown out of that habit now. She was no longer in Evangelions and that might have straightened her out a bit. Both knew that she had problems of her own, as they were well aware of by the time she mentally broke down. But time had healed Shinji and if he could heal, so did Asuka apparently. Shinji and Misato sighed at that thought; after all the troubles Asuka went through back then, she'd must've had a hard time healing without friends around her…at least not them, Asuka they knew had friends in Germany that must've helped them.

"Okay, I ate your 'healthy' meal" Misato finished her meal and not a moment too soon.

"And most likely saved yourself the guilt of two pounds extra around your waist" Shinji added as he also finished.

"Fine; ill gain those two pounds with these!" Misato opened another beer can and drank it all,

"Your loss" Shinji said as he went to the kitchen with the plates "and you were starting to look pretty healthy"

"This is my 10th one today!" Misato slammed her beer on the table in defiance "and my chest needs its nutrition!"

They both laughed as Shinji washed the dishes and put everything away. They both later sat down on the couch and watched TV for another hour before Shinji decided it was time to go to bed. Considering their morning job, Misato and Shinji slept pretty early on in the evening. Misato hated it, but she was already feeling the after affects of the two beers she had just before. Shinji walked into his room, apart from a few things he'd picked up from work at Mecha gamers, the laptop he never used and a few framed photographs, it was as blank as his old room in Tokyo-3. Shinji caught sight of one of the pictures on his desk. It wasn't much, but it was of himself and Misato, Rei, Asuka and Dr Ritsuko; Standing in front of Misato's old sports car at the seaside. Of all those people had gone their separate ways shortly after that the picture was taken; one was deported, one moved away never to meet again and god knows what happened with Rei. He took the picture off the desk and Shinji crashed on the bed upright, looking intently at the young German girl's face. His mind track was interrupted when Misato knocked his door.

"Hai?" Shinji spoke,

"It's about the delivery tomorrow morning" Misato said from the other side of the door "I'm going to come with you up to the Sohma family hot springs resort, I need to check with her about her change in orders"

"Alright" Shinji placed the picture on the floor "Goodnight then"

"Goodnight" Misato said and walked off. Shinji lay back and let is desire for sleep take over. It had just been another typical day for him, and he was sure that tomorrow would be the same, at least he hoped so.

* * *

**Author's commentary**

_First chapter finished in the Block I upgrade program of 2009. no previous commentary was written. Originally posted July 9th, 2006_

**_Nighthawk_Imac_**

**_July 3rd, 2009 _**


	3. Episode 02: Shinji's dilemma

After Evangelion

Episode 2: Shinji's Dilemma

'Another day, another delivery run' Shinji thought to himself as he drove up the driveway path to one of the Katsuragi Tofu Shop's most fussy clients; The Sohma family's hot springs estate. It was not that the client's actual owners were annoying, but the person that was in charge of the hot spring had stiff upper lip towards the general public. Everyone morning when Shinji went to deliver Tofu to this woman, he'd have to suffer a five to ten minute lecture from the hostess about something he did wrongly or the quality of the previous day's Tofu.

From what Misato managed to get from her, the hostess use to be in charge of the client's main estate staff in Tokyo, after second impact; the entire client's family moved to Nagoya-2 when it was finished. After a few disagreements between her and the head of the Sohma Family, she was 'transferred' to take care of the hot springs estate the said family owned in Tochigi Prefecture. Meanwhile the hostess in charge was promoted and put in charge of another hot Springs in Kyoto.

Nor Shinji or Misato knew why she didn't just cancel the contract and stop buying their Tofu; there were several reasons that probably explained why this hostess couldn't cancel the contract. The first reason was that the Katsuragi Tofu Shop was the only shop in town that did morning deliveries. The second was that the Sohma family main house had say over the affairs of that particular hot springs for some reason.

Shinji parked the car just outside the main entrance of the main building of the lodge; from there outside waiting was the hostess lady. Shinji knew that by her watch, he may as well be late by several hours, but he had to stop by a gas station to fill up the car before. Despite the setbacks of annoying customers, Shinji didn't mind this job; it was at the very least more honest then the work he was doing before he moved to Karasuyama-2, that's at least if you could call his service at NERV honest work.

He was conscripted to join NERV and forced into an emotional blackmail to not leave them. In the end; they simply got rid of him the moment became useless to his father. Shinji didn't exactly care about what his father thought of him at the end of it; he'd almost killed Toji, whom to this day was working with a prosthetic leg and arm, not that Toji blamed him, but Shinji still felt some level of responsibility.

"You're late as usual" the woman started her barrage of insults as Shinji started to move the crate from the top of four. Four hotels ordered a full Rack of Tofu everyday and two ordered a rack in the afternoons on weekends.

"My apologies, I had to fill the petrol tank on the way up this morning" Shinji replied as he walked down the hall to the kitchen. It was kind of heavy for a crate, but this hot springs usually ordered a few slabs more for each order. Shinji wondered who was visiting them often enough to even retain some commercial success. This was the only hot springs in Karasuyama-2 that didn't admit kids to stay. Yet all the other ones were family hotels as well as couple retreats.

"I've inspected the tofu" she said with a grin "and I'm quite pleased with the quality that it is in, I'll be sure to have the payment delivered to you as soon as possible. Therefore I expect you to finish your job, and not to make loud screeches with that car of yours like last night!"

"Hostess-san?"

"I know it's you!" she pointed at Trueno parked just outside the Foyer "since 10 o'clock last night, all I hear is this whistling noise of this Engine"

Shinji started his way out of the hotel inn, it was the first one he had to visit before heading back to the shop and to school, somehow, he was doing great time considering. Shinji thought about it for a minute, the engine made a low pitched noise, even in high Revs the engine also didn't have enough power to make the noise the lady was describing.

"I don't doubt you heard any noise, but I can assure you that isn't this car, its doesn't sound like that" Shinji defended, "and your tofu would be completely destroyed I drove like that"

The lady thought about the words for a moment, only to suffix the fact that he was indeed right. Shinji got into the car and turned on the engine, the first Engine rev was enough prove that the engine couldn't do that noise. The lady walked inside acknowledging defeat and permitting Shinji to drive quietly drove done to the gates and back onto the road. The mountain pass known as the Kira pass was a long road, and a quite hard road, stiff turns, and mostly downhill turns.

Shinji had heard many rumors of people driving sports cars around here at nighttime, he'd heard of it from the other hot spring hotels along Mt Kira Road; but despite the noise they made, the hotel managers were actually quite welcome to have them. To them it meant visitors wanting a place to stay when they wanted to sleep, and usually these drivers paid more to sleep in the daytime at their hotels.

It seemed the only person that actually had any problem with the racing was the lady in charge of the Sohma Family hot springs resort. Shinji continued driving until he hit a corner, now that he had reached the top of the mountain, he could he a little crazy with his driving down the rest of the way.

Shinji looked ahead at a corner, then down at his wheel, then into the rear view mirror. He'd known it for a long time that he was the only one that drove at this hour of the morning, no one else would be on the road, but with the mention that there was a another driver on the roads just recently, he had to be careful. Without feeling it in his mind; Shinji lightly tapped more weight onto the accelerator. The car pushed forward faster towards the corner. He shifted gears, from two to three.

Now Shinji wasn't stupid, he knew that he could drive crazy with the other three orders of Tofu in the car, the corner approached him. It was he was about to enter what could've easily ended in a crash, Shinji suddenly jolted his feet onto the breaks,

Break…down to 2, accelerate…up to 4,'

His arm did as his mind dictated and rapidly down shifted twice. The car started to drift slightly, or not at all, the tail end remained on trail. Shinji then stopped breaking and hit the accelerator like a brick. The roar of the engine hummed into life and the feel of the energy was felt in the form of Shinji being pushed back into his seat,

He rapidly up shifted to third, then fourth. The car was really moving now, and Shinji suddenly felt his mind feeling calm again. Probably as a result of bad influence, Shinji's driving habits were almost imitative of that of Misato's. It was Misato that taught him initially how to drive a car, albeit very fast; but where Misato was incapable of maintaining a smooth balance, Shinji had a year practicing and perfecting his driving techniques more then his guardian could accomplish.

'The next corner is a hairpin, ill try enter it with more speed' Shinji thought as he tapped more on the accelerator more. The car engine was roaring with more heat then it usual. Shinji didn't notice it though; his concentration of all the noises in his car and sight of the scenery around him disappeared as he entered the run. His eyes and ears were purely focused on the road. Shinji looked down slightly to the dashboard

'7000…6750…now' Shinji grabbed the gear shift and with one hand turn the wheel towards the inner edge of the corner, his lone foot tapped off the accelerator and onto the break, the gravity of the breaking was felt as he hit the brakes and downshifted to third.

'This time ill stay on third' Shinji spoke to himself. The car this time did a more genuine drift, a little more in fact, he was holding it until the latter part where the wheels and back of the car started skidding towards the outer guard rail 'accelerate and shift up now'

Shinji held his breath as the sudden boast of acceleration pushed the car from the mere inches distance between the rear of the car and the guardrail. Shinji seemed to have not noticed it at all; his focus was purely on the road ahead and the tachometer in the dashboard. It wasn't like the game arcade white one, it was red lights on a black background, and was only rated to 8000rpm.

On the straightway again, Shinji quickly evaluated what he just did; his drift speed was too fast or his entry was too shallow. But Shinji started to slow down; he'd already managed to arrive to the next hotel on the road.

'… and I was starting to get into the mood' Shinji sighed as he pulled into the driveway foyer of the hotel. He looked at the car park just outside, there were only five spaces but one of them had a Nissan 180SX parked. After a quick drop off and checkup with the hostess; Shinji was back on the road again.

Shinji sped up more towards the next corner of the road, simple 135 degree turn forward. Shinji tapped the accelerator on; somehow, tapping twice pushed it to go faster, slightly. It didn't matter for the moment, Shinji turned towards the inner side of the corner, this time it was a matter of how close he could get to the gutter.

Shinji slowed a bit, but didn't change gears; just how much slower could he go staying on third gear? He went into the curve, it didn't feel like much, the drift this time was only marginal, but at least the whole back swayed back out like last time. The engine was starting to beg for second gear, the sound Shinji interpreted was what it was saying to him, instead, he increased the speed more. The sound subsided but the drift swing was becoming larger.

As quickly as his driving, so was Shinji's understanding of the car's general dynamics and the physics rules that came with the style of driving. Shinji didn't notice his style of driving being bad at all, just that no one was around to arrest him and that seriously no one was around at this hour.

Shinji slowed down again as came up towards an intersection; the third hot springs hotel was off the beaten track slightly as it backed a smaller Lake. Shinji kind of liked the owner of this next hotel; she was the only other person other then his friends and Misato that knew he was an Evangelion Pilot. That was purely because she use to work at the Geofront herself.

Shinji pulled up the car to the front of the hotel, and looked around, inside the glass doors the lights suddenly turned on and a woman wearing a nightgown walked down the staircase in a hurry. Shinji knew it was her, being slightly late, so started by opening the hatchback and got out of the car.

"Good morning Shinji-kun" the woman spoke, "I'm sorry about that, my alarm clock must've died, I only just heard you drive in and that woke me up"

"Glad I could help Chisame-san" Shinji chuckled as he lifted the 2nd last crate of Tofu out of the back of the car.

"So how is Katsuragi-san doing?"

"Oh she is quite alright, her diet is starting show results" Shinji replied, deciding to omit that the only reason what was working was because he was doing all of the cooking nowadays and Misato was left to eat what was being cooked. Shinji walked inside as Chisame opened the door. The hot springs was her fathers originally and was kept in good condition until he became unwell, Chisame then decided to return and take over her father's establishment. But Chisame left long before any of the latter half other angel attacks took place and didn't know the worst of it.

She quietly respected Shinji for being insane enough to get inside those machines every time. Although it was only until recently that Shinji cleared some of those facts up about the reality of his time in NERV, it only made Chisame Respect him even more, duly and honestly believing that all the Evangelion Pilots were cheated of their respect and dignity as if they were nothing more then tools.

"Did you hear any strange engine noises last night did you?"

"No…oh there were a few cars last night actually, I think they were practicing or something, one of them is staying up at the lodge up the mountain a bit,

"Yea, I saw a car outside in the parking lot"

Shinji and Chisame entered the kitchen and gave Shinji space to put down the tofu on the bench. Chisame like all good hostesses inspected the produce and with much approval agreed it was intact. Before Shinji could turn around he yawned slight and gave the attention of Chisame.

"You're still tired?"

"Nah, just a little…" Shinji yawned again,

"Would you like some coffee?"

"No, I really should be getting on my way"

"Don't worry about it Shinji. On the house"

Shinji sighed, and accepted the offer; he sat down on a bench while Chisame made him a quick coffee.

"Why are you asking about those cars?" Chisame asked as she started the coffee machine "Is old lady Sohma having another complaining marathon?"

"Yes" Shinji replied "She thinks I have been up and around at ten o'clock last night racing some cars and described an engine noise that doesn't even match the mine.

"Well, the Trueno is a well known Drifting car" Chisame replied "Maybe she assumed"

"No, she said that the engine had a higher pitch then I know my car can do, and she said it had a squeaking noise as well"

"Then your right, which means someone, has a turbo in their car" Chisame responded "I'm guessing some kids from down the highway from old Tokyo are looking for a race. There isn't a team around here thou anymore"

The coffee machine beeped and poured out the liquid into a wooden cup with the hot springs hotel logo on the side.

"Here you go, you can give that back to me tomorrow" Chisame Smiled and looked at the clock, "and it's only just after 5am"

"5am? Dang I've got to hurry!" Shinji spoke as he collected his free coffee "thank you again Chisame-san"

Shinji quickly walked out of the hotel lobby and back into his car. Technically Shinji was ten minutes ahead today when he arrived to this hot springs hotel, but now he was five minutes behind, now it called on his skills to catch up to the final hotel.

Shinji sped off, quietly at first as to not disturb the people sleeping in the hotel. Once Shinji felt he was at a far enough, he floored the accelerator and headed out. Shinji looked in the back, one crate remaining; it was covered and sealed, He then smiled as he put on the speed and drove back to the intersection.

At the same time, another car was coming down Mt Kira Road; a White Nissan SilEighty was speeding down the mountain, installed with a single Turbo, this car was the true culprit to the noise that Shinji was blamed for. The Sileighty was the Simply a Nissan 180SX with the front end rebuild with Silvia S13 parts. It wasn't a dramatically fast vehicle, but it packed roughly 230 horsepower which made is a fair match to any vehicle in the region.

"There was no competition here; they expect to host a Drifting contest and nobody from their own hometown showed up!" the driver spoke; he approached the corner and in a style similar to Shinji's own, performed a handbrake drift around a hairpin.

"Well, their hometown didn't consist of a lot of people; they said that there was only one team of three drivers that lived in these parts"

"I'm sure they were lying" the driver said "sure that it's not back when our dad's were actively driving, but still…where is the culture anymore?"

The drivers continued to drive up and down the previous night in preparation for the race in the next month. Suddenly they saw a car drift around the intersection ahead of them, it was small and black. And the driver swore he saw something pink on the side.

"What the hell was that?" the driver floored the car to catch up

"It's an AE86!" the passenger replied "you don't see those cars around anymore, only the new ones Takashi-kun"

Takashi smiled as he saw the car ahead speed off, was he another contestant? No, he wasn't even at the meet last night, so why was he here at this hour?

"Let's catch up to him and race" Takashi spoke in excitement and floored his sileighty.

Meanwhile in the Black Trueno Shinji looked down at the clock, 5:20am.

"Dang, I've got to hurry' Shinji though as he turned into the next corner. Not aware that another car was quickly approaching him from behind. Shinji shifted down to third gear and then second as he drifted around the corner.

"I think he saw us, he's trying to get away"

"Like a hunter, I've found my prey" Takashi said as her roared around the corner that Shinji had been on just mere seconds ago. "Let's try to out run him by the time we get to the hotel"

Shinji continued to drive, unaware that he was 'racing' another car behind him; he didn't even notice that the other car flicked its headlights several times. In terms of Drifting terms, Mt Kira's downhill mountain pass was long; it started a few hundred meters up the road from the Sohma family Hot springs Estate and went down the road to park and rest point outside the final hotel on the road. After that, the bridge led over a river that led to a light residential district; eventually connected up with Cherry Blossom Avenue.

Shinji made a sharp drift around the corner and retained back to fourth gear. Behind him slightly, Takashi's Sileighty swung around the corner trying to come bumper to bumper with the Black Trueno ahead of him.

"Well, I've got to admit, this guy is a worthy opponent" Takashi admitted "but why wasn't he up there at the race meet before?"

"I don't think that's a road racer's car" the passenger pointed out "I managed to read the side of the AE86, it says _Katsuragi Tofu Shop _on the side, in pink!"

"The driver must be pretty girly or brave to be driving around with that"

Shinji sneezed suddenly, it made him loose focus for a second, he looked back up the clock before he looked at the road; the clock read 5:27am. 'Good' he though to himself; he was back on time, and the hotel was just up ahead, two more hairpins and then the straight.

'another hairpin ahead, this time ill slow down to second gear and try again to get close to the inner gutter' Shinji looked ahead to the curve in the road; without remembering, the curve descended in the hairpin. Shinji started to lean the car towards the gutter, quickly in his mind; he calculated the speed of his car versus the corner, counting his speed, his distance with between the hedge and the car.

Then it happened; Shinji shifted down to second and started to break, indeed he was going into the corner without a drift, but his front tires were hovering very close to the inner gutter before the tires gripped the edge of the road. Shinji's black Trueno accelerated around the hairpin and back onto the road.

"Whoa…" the passenger in the sileighty was lost for words when suddenly the AE86 in front of them disappeared around the corner "did you see that?"

"What the hell? Is this guy crazy?"

Takashi turned around the corner and saw up that the AE86 was even seen at the next hairpin. He decided to give up the AE86 was obviously containing either a heavily tuned engine or a very skilled driver.

"You're slowing down?" the passenger spoke as Takashi slowed down his approach and turned the corner like a normal car.

"Don't worry about it Yuki-kun" Taskashi said as he saw the AE86 wasn't around this corner either. "We'll find out who drives that car"

Their conversation was interrupted when they saw the same black AE86 pull out of the hotel they were staying at and drive off towards Karasuyama-2 central.

"That guy is quick"

Location: Mecha Gamers, Cherry blossom Avenue. Karasuyama-2

Time: 15:22 hrs

Date: September 9th, 2017

"It's…"

"…Boring" Shinji finished Kensuke's remarks. Saturdays in the small town were quite busy. Karasuyama-2 was well known as a weekender retreat for families from all over the Tochigi Prefecture, thus spawned a hotel and retreat industry in the mountains around the area. Despite the crowds that came to the shopping district, this didn't change the number of patrons that came into the store that much. Not that it was bad, roughly twice the customers visited, mostly people that were holidaying in the weekend retreats.

Shinji couldn't complain about this job either, while anime and that kind of stuff disinterested him greatly, even scared him to a degree, the gaming aisles were where he was truly his interest. Kensuke on the other hand was developing a strange interest in some of the Manga that was on the shelves; mainly romantic comedies, but the most disturbing types that he could buy.

"Hello sir" Shinji's lack of bored was interrupted as a teenager with glasses entered the store and placed 2 PS4 games on the counter.

"That'll be 2000 yen" Shinji replied as he tapped and scanned the barcodes of the two titles. Annoyingly, both were Dating Sims; Shinji couldn't understand why they still existed or why people bought them anymore, or was that because of his experiences with Asuka talking to him? No after a year with Rei and Asuka basically being only choices to him, he couldn't even decide from two.

It didn't matter anyway, his father or fate made sure that he couldn't be happy anyway, every time Shinji made a friend or got a ahead in life slightly, there was always a catch in it. When he befriended Kaworu, it turned out that he was an angel, and Shinji was forced to kill him. Once Shinji managed to isolate himself from his father again, Shinji's life suddenly was lifted from a heavily burden that kept dragging it down.

Once he moved to Tochigi Prefecture, Shinji decide once and for all to start afresh with Misato and everyone. Even thought Shinji had a lot going against him in terms of making friends asking about his past, Shinji prevailed and managed to get around answering those questions. While Shinji remained honest about his actions, he didn't want to lie to them. Nor did Shinji wanted to tell them the truth, as Naoko had once said to him; she was quite scared of the pilots from of the Evangelions and would be scared if she ever met one.

"Hey Shinji, Kensuke" spoke the voice outside "slaving away in a sweatshop as usual?"

Shinji was lifted up from his boredom when he saw outside; it was Hikari, Toji, Naoko and Kazuma. Shinji only had to look at Toji for one second before he shuddered slightly, but he tried to hide it. Shinji initially after the incident kept breaking down every time he saw Toji after he left the hospital and until he left Tokyo-3; Shinji decided it was his best belief that he would avoid Toji for as long as needed,

When Shinji left and moved to Karasuyama-2; it was Hikari that told him that is former friend had moved away. At first; Toji believed that Shinji wasn't responsible for the way he was. But then after the idol amount of avoidance Shinji felt was needed between him and Toji, he got mad. Toji channeled his frustrations onto an already distraught Hikari; it was immediately after Toji knew he'd gone too far, first Shinji and now Hikari.

Toji and Hikari stopped talking to each other for sometime afterwards. When Misato invited them and their families to move to Karasuyama-2; Toji was against the idea at first, blaming Shinji for the way he was, and for Hikari supporting him instead. Kensuke had about enough of the fighting between the two and together with some other girls in the school, managed to lock Hikari and Toji in a cupboard until they resolved their differences

It took then an overnight stay in the classroom cupboard before Toji and Hikari decided to move to Karasuyama-2 and do their combined best to befriend Shinji again. It was then Hikari fell in love with Toji, this time for real. About a month later, before Shinji came face to face with Toji again, Misato decided to tell Toji and Hikari both exactly what happened. Toji realized then why Shinji couldn't face him, and decided to be more delicate with meeting Shinji again.

Eventually; Shinji and Toji became friends again, but Shinji could help but feel responsible for his friend's predicament.

"Good afternoon" Shinji greeted as the group of teenagers made their way to the counter,

"Busy?" Hikari said taking off her hat.

"No…it's a little busier on Saturdays thou" Shinji fiddled with is words "so what are you all doing in town?"

"They said I wasn't needed on shift today after all" Hikari replied looking around the store,

"Actually we were going to ask you Shinji if you were thinking about coming with me and Toji later" Kazuma spoke "my dad is letting me loan of the car, so I'm taking Toji here up to see his first Drift battle!"

"Sorry" Shinji replied slowly "I can't, Misato needs to help me make the morning batch of tofu"

"I'm sure that Misato-san will manage" Toji replied "she can cook it cant she?

"That's not what I'm concerned about"

"Oh yea…" Kazuma spoke "I heard a weird rumor this morning, two people in a White Sileighty said they saw a car that sounds like Black Trueno that Misato owns coming down the hill at full force this morning"

"What?" Shinji replied 'don't tell me they saw me in the car?'

"Anyway, what was Misato doing out at that hour of the morning?" Hikari replied,

"Oh…" Shinji saw a chance to cover himself "Misato has to deliver the tofu to all the hotels in the morning"

"Okay, that should explain the erratic driving" Kensuke added after he finished with a customer "I heard about that as well over the internet"

"What was it about?" Shinji asked

"Some driver in a White Sileighty said they saw a black AE86 doing drift turns around along Mt Kira road this morning, the drive tried to communicate with the driver with his headlights, he assumed that the driver was responding to the request for a battle, but when the sileighty driver was defeated, he continued driving down to the hotel at the end of the course, and saw the same black AE86 pull out of the hotel, apparently like it was a courier or something"

Shinji froze, how could be so blind, for a moment, he though it was safe for them to assume it was Misato driving. But would happen if they wanted to talk to the owner of the black Trueno? Misato wasn't the kind of skilled driver they were matching to the car. Misato had difficulty keeping it driving in a straight let alone pull off some of the stunts like drifting, at least not by accident.

"What's an AE86" Hikari asked "didn't you say it was Trueno before?"

"An AE86 is a Trueno" Kazuma explained "AE86 is the chassis code for a Toyota AE86 Trueno, Road racers usually refer to a car by Chassis code instead of name"

Hikari nodded, not understanding or caring what he said.

"Anyway, the driver said that he'll look out for the driver of the Trueno tonight, if he shows of course"

Shinji nodded in response. Wondering what kind of abuse Shinji would get from Misato when he got home. Suddenly his lunch felt like it'd dropped to his feet. Misato probably got a phone call by now asking about the incident. Usually she'd be okay as normally the only person complaining was the lady in charge of the Sohma family hot spring estate. But if his mental description was right, he was in serious trouble.

"Shinji you don't look good" Hikari noticed his face turn pale

"I'm alright, I'll just be in the toilet" Shinji passed off the comment and walked into the back"

"Is Shinji okay?" Naoko asked as she returned from the girl's manga section, apparently unaware of the conversation.

"Yea, I think Shinji is having another one of his famous guilt trips" Toji loudly replied the end of his sentence.

"Don't be harsh on Shinji-kun" Hikari hit Toji,

"Alright…" Toji surrendered, "anyway, we better let you go and take care of this store before someone steals everything! Take care"

"See you later" Kensuke replied,

The gang walked out of the store and disappeared, leaving Kensuke to watch over the store as two ten year olds attempted to play a combat flight simulator in the PS4 display. While four or five girls were on a shopping spree picking up manga books and other tiny trinkets. Shinji immerged from the back, while some color restored to his face.

"You are feeling alright man?"

"Yea, just bad lunch"

"Bad lunch?" Kensuke questioned "…so you got sick exactly when they started talking about the Trueno that is at your home?"

"No!"

"I'm sure those guys got the wrong idea too, Shinji. I mean I know how Misato drives and she can't be that good, there has to be something else in involved"

Shinji sweated as Kensuke examined him mentally, it sounded like he had already concluded what really happened.

"But you can't have been driving; you don't even have a license yet!"

"Alright…" Shinji stopped Kensuke, "…lay off the topic already, I'm going to be sick otherwise"

"Done"

Location: Katsuragi Tofu Shop, Karasuyama-2

Time: 17:53hrs

Date: September 9th, 2017

Shinji managed to convince Kensuke to let him close shop alone, pretending he had something to do before he went home. At first Shinji believed that it was best to get it over and done with, but as he got closer and closer to home, so did Shinji's walking pace. He already knew that Misato would be angry with him, getting her into trouble like that. But it was how he would be punished and what kind of mental torture that he'd inflict from her that made him slow down even further.

'Maybe she'll understand me' Shinji thought to him, 'no; they would've assumed it was her driving! She won't forgive me for something that'

Shinji continued to walk until he reached the street his home was on. For the first time since moved to Karasuyama-2, he wished he didn't have to come home here. He couldn't predict what Misato would do to him. It continued to scare Shinji senseless how she'd react.

'I know I'm in trouble face it, so running away wont help'

'I don't know, running away seems to be your talent, you ran away from your Misato twice before didn't you?' another voice in Shinji's head voiced out.

'Those were different reasons!'

Shinji looked down the path ahead and saw the Tofu shop. Without noticing; while his own mine was debating itself, Shinji was still walking the down the street towards home.

'Why are you walking towards it? You know Misato is going to rip your head off for this one!'

'Because I have to face her, it's my fault she is in trouble!'

'Run away and fight your battle another time'

'No, I can't run away' Shinji said to his mind 'I can't run away'

He started chanting that well know line from his past in his mind as he approached the house he'd lived in. Suddenly he noticed that the front was shut up and closed. Misato closed half an hour early? Why?

'You know why; it's because she doesn't want customers to overhear her killing you'

'She wouldn't do that! I think' Shinji defended 'No! I have to face it; it's my fault and I'll face it myself'

Shinji then opened his eyes and found himself outside the Tofu shop and his home for the last two years. Shinji clenched his fists and looked at the building, the roller shutters were closed which means the only entry to the building was via a backdoor were the kitchen was. Shinji assumed that Misato was waiting just inside the door with a lead bar. Was she seriously going to throttle him?

Shinji decided there and then that he had no choice but to tell fate take its course and let Misato explode at him. He walked alongside the Black Trueno and up to the porch of the door. For about a minute Shinji stayed there and before he retrieved his keys and unlocked the door.

Shinji waked into the back storage room, all the lights were out. Shinji closed the door behind him and walked down to the store section of the floor. It was dark with on the lights in the display cabinets turned on. Shinji felt like Misato was hiding behind a stove or the counter; he amiably was scared. Shinji could find Misato hiding anywhere behind the counter or anything else.

He decided to brave his chances and try upstairs before he saw a woman in the doorway to the staircase. It was completely dark, expect for the lights upstairs. The silhouette reflected the outline of the person Shinji knew so well,

"Misato-san!" Shinji gasped in surprise "…I…I…"

"Shinji-kun…" Misato said in a very blank voice, as she walked out the doorway "…would you please get in the car?"

"…I'm…I'm…" Shinji tried to say it; he wanted to say he was sorry; he'd done so many times in the past

"I'd like you to come with me on the afternoon delivery" Misato turned on the light behind her, Shinji saw her face finally. To his surprise her eyebrows didn't have that 'I knew what you did' look, instead, Misato looked more like she was concerned then annoyed. With that, Shinji eased up a little, but it didn't stop him being afraid. Shinji knew Misato was a master at pretending.

"I'd like to have a little talk with you…"

"Misato-san…" Shinji finally said a full word "…I'm sor…"

"No apologies. get in the car mister!" Misato lashed out slightly,

Shinji nodded, he was trapped; it was quite obvious that Misato was disappointed in him now more then ever. Shinji put down his backpack in the centre of the room and walked towards the fridge were the usually delivery for the afternoon run of Tofu would be stored.

"Its already in the car Shinji…" Misato pull the keys from her pocket and walked to the door "…now hurry up"

Shinji walked out of the building the same way he came in, locking the door. He walked around and got into the passenger side of the car. Misato started up the black Trueno and started off down the street towards Mt Kira road.

Shinji didn't even look at Misato once for 10 minutes, only concentrating on the road ahead of him. Inside he felt that Misato must've been ready to crash the car and kill them both. What was she going to do to him; he obviously wasn't going to hear the end of this. Misato waited until they'd past the 'ending point' of the downhill course before she started to talk.

"Today, I had two people in a white sports car come buy and ask for fried Tofu, then they asked me how long I had been a road racer"

"I…"

"I'm not done yet" Misato continued "I asked them what were they talking about, then they told me they were driving behind this car this morning and said that whoever was driving knew how to drift and was racing at high speeds down the hill" Misato looked over to Shinji whom was looked down at his feet, feeling disappointed "But I'm guessing by your reaction, you already knew that?"

"Yes…I…I'm sorry Misato-san" Shinji finally said it, he then returned to being silent. Misato put her free hand over his head and patted it.

"Shinji…" Misato spoke with a lighter tone "I knew this was bound to happen at some point"

Shinji looked up at his guardian who was now smiling. With that he felt her heart had forgiven him for her dilemma and embarrassment. Shinji sat upright and relaxed in the seat while Misato continued to drive along the road to the top hotel along the road. It kind of felt warming that Shinji felt some level of compassion and forgiveness from Misato. But for some reason, Shinji felt like it wasn't over.

Eventually they came up to the top of the mountain pass and drove towards the Sohma family hot springs Estate. It obviously made sense that she wanted to talk about it as soon as possible, but why did he have to come along? She wanted help with the old lady? Misato parked the Trueno outside the front foyer of the hotel. Misato got out and instructed Shinji to pick up the crate of Tofu in the back.

"Ah Ms. Katsuragi-san…" the old hostess greeted with a stern voice "…so nice of you to actually arrive on time!"

"Yes madam" Misato replied formally,

"And I see you brought that delinquent of an employee you hired" the hostess looked over at Shinji who was standing there with the heavy crate in hands "I don't why you haven't managed to find a replacement driver and fire this rude child"

"I had a firm belief of doing just that today…but it ended up not being his fault" Misato's eye unnoticeably twitched,

"Well, I'm not the person to privy into personal affairs or your business, but I'd like you to consider it"

Shinji followed Misato and the hostess lady into the kitchen were another person was waiting for the evening supply of Tofu. He looked tired, but that was expected for working in a place controlled by this person. Shinji dropped the crate down on the table and quickly turned and past Misato and the hostess lady who stopped in the foyer of the hotel.

"…Shinji is a good employee madam" Misato said in half sentence "he shows up early to work and does a lot of other jobs for me I would expect someone his age to do"

"I doubt that clearly Ms. Katsuragi-san, everyone his age always acts irresponsibly and wild, what makes you think that he is any different?"

"Trust me madam, Shinji-kun isn't irresponsible"

Misato finished talking to the hostess and stormed out to the car. Misato started up the car and drove off down the driveway towards the road. Misato stopped the car at the entrance before screaming at no one in particular, only leaving Shinji the unfortunate witness

"That annoying old hag! Misato almost hit the car horn "How dare she say that about you!" she took another ten seconds before regaining control of the car and then turned right.

"Misato, aren't you going the wrong way?" Shinji asked as they approached side rest stop.

"Not exactly" Misato recomposed herself as she entered the bay on the left side of the road. Nobody was around; not that they were both expecting any. The main freeway went along the valley floor and nowhere near Karasuyama-2. This mountain road was merely a scenic route.

"Do you know why I asked you to come along?" Misato said as she stopped the car,

"No" Shinji admitted, Shinji didn't understand where Misato was coming from; she obviously was now enacting her punishment. Was she going to make him walk home? Or was she going to tell him to walk the other way? Shinji felt fear again that Misato was literally thinking the latter,

"Get in the driver's seat" Misato instructed him, she then got out of the car herself and walked around to the passenger side seat, Shinji looked at her as she walked around the front,

"Hai?" Shinji complied and exited the car, going around the front and into the driver side seat. Shinji sat down and adjusted himself, while Misato waited for him.

"When those drivers came by, their intention was to challenge the driver of this car to a race"

"I'm sorry I didn't think that they'd…" Shinji was interrupted by Misato putting a finger over his lips,

"I told them that I wasn't the driver, so they told me to tell the driver…you…that he wanted to challenge you to a race, next Saturday night, here"

"Misato-san?" Shinji asked,

"So I wanted to see for myself, right now, how great these skills he said you had are. So I asked him where they started the race, he said here."

"Misato-san?" Shinji repeated, again he was cut off by her the same way,

"I know it isn't your fault, just remember that next time you think I'm angry at you about it. Now show me how you drive"

Shinji nodded and started the Trueno up again, immediately he started to drive the car down the end of the bay. And slowly he turned around to face the road in the direction of Karasuyama-2. Misato looked over to Shinji sighed, she felt like Shinji expected to be left here by himself, no way she'd do that, Shinji was the last best friend she had.

Shinji started driving and picked up speed as they started the downhill pass towards their hometown. Shinji shifted it into 4th gear on the long stretch. Misato was starting to get anxious as Shinji focused on the road ahead.

"Alright, please don't be surprised Misato-san, I'm not that good" Shinji said as he past a particular sign saying a wide corner ahead. Misato noticed the sign too; it meant that the turn was a hundred meters ahead.

"Shinji-kun" Misato spoke with a hint of panic "don't you think you're going a little too fast?"

Shinji didn't respond instead he started to attack the corner, downshifting to third gear, Shinji then hit the brakes and downshifted again to second gear and turned the car into the direction that the end of the corner when he hit the accelerator and the car started to move in the said direction. Misato sweated furiously as she saw in the right side rear view mirror how close the back of the car was from hitting the guard rail.

"Shinji are your crazy?" Misato said as soon as they cleared the corner, Shinji started picking up some speed for the second corner. He placed one hand on the wheel and another on the gear shift; he blinked a few times and re-adjusted himself in the seat slightly to a more comfortable position.

"Alright" Shinji said as he exited the second corner. Instantly he floored it; Misato felt the force of gravity push her back into the seat as the engine suddenly roared to life and the Trueno suddenly accelerated towards the next corner. Misato looked over to Shinji who was starting to whisper to himself

'Up to four' Shinji thought aloud as they were entering the straight. Then as quickly, the approached the next corner, Shinji took his foot of the accelerator and shifted down to third gear.

'Then down to two…keep the front wheel on the white line' Shinji whispered out his thoughts, catching the attention of Misato. Shinji swaped the accelerator petal for the braking and commenced his entry into the drift.

Just as he whispered to himself, he started the exact actions he turned and started to drift the car around the hairpin turn. Shinji's new goal was to go as smoothly around the corners as possible. Shinji cleared the hairpin and entered another short straightway

"Shinji-kun, what are you doing?" Misato asked

"What I did this morning"

For the next ten minutes, Misato held on as Shinji continued driving while at the same time; scared for her life, only looking at him, and listing to his muttering. He was going faster around every corner down the hill. At most points, Shinji slowed down dramatically and approached a corner with much less speed, most these corners were a lot harder the at the start, most being tighter then normal. Apart from a few flaws in his pattern and Shinji being still cautious at this; his skill behind the wheel was both bone chilling and spectacular to Misato whom was exceptionally well known for driving like this unintentionally,

To Shinji, he'd forgotten all about Misato being in the passenger seat. All he could hear was the engine roaring up in rpm and the see the road ahead of him; somehow he had adapted to know what noise he had to hear before he had to change gears.

'There is a twin set of hairpin turns up ahead, ill try that trick on one and then slow down for after the second one' Shinji thought as he approached the said set of hairpin turns. Shinji started to make an approach for the hairpin before he saw it, a slow moving truck was turning the corner on the outside, Shinji flinched for only a nano second before changing his directive. He was going to try the trick on the last hairpin, but now he had to do it.

"Shinji, we're going to crash!" Misato noticed the truck moving around the corner, if Shinji continued to drive and drift the car around corners like before, the back end of the Trueno would get wiped out by the truck and probably spin them into the hillside. Shinji held his breath and increased speed and dove as close as he could for the gutter. For 4 seconds, the universe to Misato slowed down, she turned to look at Shinji then at the road, then at what Shinji was doing, then saw him start to take action. Was he going to slow down? No even at full braking they'd slam into the truck.

And then it happened, suddenly the Trueno's left side wheel were in the gutter just as the corner approach ended and the curved started. Shinji then retained the speed as he best he could and changed the gear shift to three. Misato looked on in disbelief as truck came mere inches from the right side of the car closest to Shinji. Her heartbeat increased and almost literally synchronized with the rpm's of the Trueno.

To Misato's complete disbelief, Shinji cleared the truck and the corner before he leveled out onto the road again and started to slow down, after a scare like that; Shinji decided they had had enough fun for one day. Shinji started to slow down his pace, they were already another corner way from the bottom of the mountain anyway.

"…Shinji-kun…what the hell was that?"

"What I did this morning?"

"I had my doubts…but I think your more then capable…Shinji-kun" Misato puffed out her built out stress.

"Are you alright?" Shinji asked, wondering if she was going to be sick

"Yes" Misato sat upright in the chair "put it this way… I'm certainly sure that you're the person that guy was talking about"

"Thank you, Misato-san, and sorry again I worried you"

"Stop saying that word, and I'm still not done punishing you" Misato winked "take me to a takeout"

"Misato-san…" Shinji mocked a sigh,

"Hey, consider it fair" Misato said "you get to scare my lunch of me, I get to have my style of dinner, how it that unfair?"

"Never mind Misato-san" Shinji didn't feel like cooking tonight either. Shinji turned onto Cherry Blossom Avenue and down the street towards the take out ramen store.


	4. Episode 03: Stepping up to the challenge

After Evangelion

Episode 3: Stepping up to the challenge

Shinji had reminded himself to be quiet about the entire incident on Saturday night, even if he told his friends, they wouldn't believe him. Misato said later that she wanted him to leave at four in the morning and do the deliveries in reverse, then practice a full course leg each morning. Shinji agreed, but didn't understand how this was punishment. For some weird reason, Misato not only past off the fact that what he was doing was illegal, but she was asking him to get better at racing.

It felt weird for a guardian like Misato to be so lax about the concept that Shinji was driving like this for over 18 months; And to ask him to race? That was unexpected, Shinji wondered for a while if she was drunk at the time she said that. No, Shinji overheard the debate between her and the owner of that hot springs hotel. Misato truly did care for Shinji, just like a mother would.

Shinji continued to walk down the street towards school, bored out of his brains, it felt frustrating that his day consisted of only work and school. It was true that everyone else worked, but Shinji didn't have any days off during the week. That being because Mecha gamers had only two employees and the boss himself. Even if he had time off, where would Shinji go? Karasuyama-2 wasn't very much to do, go to the lake maybe, but with whom?

In the reality of it all, the downtown district of Karasuyama-2 was designed for young couples; restaurants and cafes as well as every kind of boutique was open on one street that led straight to the pier. To Shinji; himself and Mecha gamers was kind of an opposite effect to the district. The only people that came into the store were lonely people looking for entertainment from their hobbies. Of course Shinji wasn't complaining about that concept, in fact.

He sometimes wondered how Misato even found this place, it felt the opposite to what Tokyo-3 was like; it was smaller, less populated and fresh air. But it didn't matter how Shinji looked at this place or what day it was. It felt like he belonged and didn't belong at the same time. After is upbringing in the city, the country felt too relaxing for his nerves to take.

"Morning Shinji-kun!" yelled a young female's voice behind him and down the street,

Shinji turned around and saw Naoko darting out and around the corner, attempting to catch up to him. Shinji couldn't outrun one of the school's best athletes so trying was close to pointless.

"Morning Naoko-san" Shinji said as she finally caught up to her

."Why you walking so slow?" Naoko replied,

"I don't know, just feeling slow today"

"Like that's anything surprising…" Naoko replied, "So how was your Sunday?"

"I was working, remember?" Shinji pointed it out "like I always do"

"Oh yea…" Naoko poked Shinji's arm playfully "you're so boring Shinji-kun, why don't you ever do anything fun?"

"I just guess I'm not that sort of person" Shinji stretch his arms up into the sky, "but it's not like I'm already use to it"

"What do you mean by that?" Naoko looked over to Shinji

"What I mean is, back in Tokyo-3, I use to work all the time and stuff"

"I don't know why you bothered to live there" Naoko drawled off "isn't that were all those Angels or what's-a-names tired to attack?"

"Yes, but their were bomb shelters and stuff like that" Shinji replied

"Still it's nice to know someone that actually survived the attacks, especially with those clumsy Evangelion robots NERV had"

Shinji had to let that kind of comment past. Shinji knew they were responsible for more damage to the city they the angel's were, but it was either that or third impact; and Shinji didn't want to be responsible for that. Ever since he moved to Karasuyama-2, he knew that he'd face people that would say harsh things about the Evangelions. Shinji wished he could yell out at everyone that ever said something bad about them and tell them the true pain and suffering each pilot had on their necks.

Of course he couldn't, it was his own promise that forced him to not tell anyone his true identity, and of course if someone put two and two together, he would have no choice but to admit he was the pilot. But so far, no one managed to bring him up about it, especially his friends whom honestly didn't care about Shinji's well being.

"Oh well, I guess they did something, I suppose" Naoko pondered off again in her thoughts "I wonder what happened to the pilots? They were celebrated a lot back then, but nobody even knows their name anymore, tells you how short lived they stardom was"

Shinji ignored that comment as well, but he felt it was funny that Naoko didn't realize that she was talking to the pilot of the longest serving Evangelion, Eva unit 01. Given the incapability's of Rei and Asuka's mental breakdown in the latter half of the angel attacks, Shinji was left alone to carry the burden of avoiding third impact and it didn't aid him as his father continued to make Shinji's life a living hell with all kinds of trouble.

"Oh my" Naoko looked at her watch "look at the time, class starts in ten minutes"

"What are you worried about?" Shinji pointed at the school building ahead of then "We're not late yet"

Naoko sighed in embarrassment as they approached the school and met up with everyone else. Shinji glad that me managed to swiftly avoid the topic of his past. But the race this Saturday was now at the top of his mind, maybe he should tell Kenesuke and Toji, they'd understand him, wouldn't they?

Location: Karasuyama-2 High School, Karasuyama-2

Time: 11:53hrs

Date: September 11th, 2017

"September of the year 2000, as the result of a military experiment, Antarctica was virtually wiped off the map and caused in what became known as the second impact…" droned on the history teacher, Shinji didn't exactly like this class, but at least what he was hearing the real history and not something that was manufactured from fake documents. Ever since the fall of NERV and SEELE, the history books were finally reprinted to tell the truth about what had actually conspired and caused the second impact.

"Initially, up until last year…we were lead to believe that the military accident was the result of a meteor that impacted in Antarctica, during the 2016 investigation on NERV another organization was discovered, called SEELE. While they haven't been put down, It was enough for the United nations to formally disband NERV from operational status"

"…in 2016, NERV's operations and research department were formally disbanded and removed from UN's 'above the law' treaty, following this many members of NERV were arrested and incrassated…"

Shinji smiled at that, by many members, it was referring to mainly insiders from SEELE and his own father, who finally was taught his own lesson in life. He was kind of annoyed that none of the history books clearly defined Gendo Iraki as the person behind the some of SEELE's crimes. But in another light, he was glad he wasn't mentioned, otherwise it would've been extremely hard to make friends here, if of course, they made the connection.

"…it's however been never established where the pilots disappeared to after the last angel attack, some people believe that the were all subsequently killed in cover-ups, but it's never been established"

'We aren't dead yet' Shinji smiled as he though to himself, 'It'd take more then that to kill me, Rei and Asuka'

The class continued talking about the Geneva trials where SEELE was brought down and most of its members basically put to death for conspiracy on the highest level. Shinji was amusingly bored at all of this, as was Toji and Kenesuke. They already knew about all of this, so when it came to questions; the teacher was surprised they were able to answer the questions, despite the fact they weren't obviously listening.

Hikari remained adamant to at least pretend to be surprised; despite the fact that Toji had told her just about everything he'd leant in his time at NERV's Geofront complex in Tokyo-3. Toji was given a full history lesson on NERV's actual history, and thus was exposed to a horrific truth that would've cost his life if he went public with the information. Naturally there were some things that he couldn't tell Hikari, even if he wanted to, his didn't want to scare the poor girl even more when Toji and his Evangelion became an angel. Hikari was frightened and almost broken mentally when she learnt about what had happened to him.

Shinji looked around at the rest of the class; most of the motley group of students was bored or slightly interested in the class. Hikari as per usually was doing a stellar job pretending to be a role model student. Despite how much it actually bore her to tears listening about how history remembered her friend's actions in the Evangelion. But as Shinji had requested, she had to keep it in, no matter what.

"…concluding this, there will a written essay on your knowledge regarding the angel attacks of 2015 due next fortnight"

Shinji grinned, without doing so much remember his own memories; he had already passed the test. But he might have to teach Toji and Hikari about them as well though, even Kenesuke. Given that there were some angel attacks that didn't happen in Tokyo-3, he had to be sure as to tell them about it.

"…Remember that anyone caught copying will be brought before the principle, Dismissed"

"Stand" Hikari ordered

The classroom continued to go through with the demands of Hikari's disciplinary routine. Shinji trying a little hard for Hikari; after all, she did give him the letter from Asuka to read. Shinji hoped that he could repay her by tutoring her about the angel attacks in depth.

"Bow"

"Good Afternoon Sensei!"

"Dismissed"

The classroom freed itself from Hikari's control the moment share said that. The entire classroom resumed their casual appearance and started retrieving their lunches from bags or any form of general chatter that usually occupied high school student conversations. Shinji packed retrieved his bag and walked out the door to his waiting friends.

"Hurry up Shinji" Toji yelled from the hallway "the world isn't waiting for you"

"Alright…" Shinji sighed as he entered the hallway and went downstairs. Secretly he felt like sneaking out to the retreat of the lone tree on the other side of the yard and have another small snooze instead, but he most likely was going to get dragged into the cafeteria with everyone else.

Inside the cafeteria, just about ever student in the high school crowded around the tables, enjoying, as best they could the air conditioners that were inside. It didn't matter how much air conditioning power there was, Shinji still prefer going outside to his favorite tree and sitting down in path of the lakeside breeze. He decided he'll briefly agree to this pending favor that Toji and Kenesuke were going to ask him, before heading outside and have a quiet sleep.

"Shinji-kun!" both Toji and Kenesuke pleaded, just as he predicted "You've got to help us!"

"Alright…" Shinji replied "Kenesuke-kun, I don't know why you're asking; you saw every one that happened in Tokyo-3"

"I know, but there is a few I don't know all the details about"

"You saw those battles?" Naoko surprised in hearing that "What were they like"

Kenesuke abruptly remembered the fondest memory of a battle he saw, he almost died when Shinji's Eva was thrown clear into the air and down landing where he was standing. Shinji narrowly missed both Toji and Kenesuke as they ended up between the fingers of the Eva's massive hand. Then both Toji and Kenesuke ended up in a front row seat, being inside the Eva during a battle with an angel.

Of course, Kenesuke remembered how much he got reprimanded for that, and he heard how much Shinji's superiors were yelling at him for allowing foreign bodies into the Evangelion.

"I saw them alright…sometimes I feel like they were done for, but they were incredible fighters" Kenesuke described them "I didn't see too much of the white one, I saw the red one sometimes, but that purple one practically was at every battle"

Naoko and Kazuma took interest in Kenesuke's 'history lesson'.

"But look how much damage they did to the city" Kazuma replied "I don't know about you, but was it really worth it?"

Hikari, Kenesuke and Toji all looked at Kazuma as they heard that comment, then she looked over at Shinji who was remaining silent. It didn't seem like he was reacting, but he was certainly taking it personally inside.

"Shinji-kun, what's wrong?" Naoko turned to face him "Every time we talk about the angel attacks, your go all quiet"

"Nothing…" Shinji stood up, "I just don't like to think about them"

"Shinji-kun" Hikari interrupted "what about these two's tutorials? Ill might come as well"

"I'll call Misato-san ask if it's okay if you can come over tonight" Shinji said before walking off and out of the room.

"Shinji's going to be like that for the rest of the day you know"

Kazuma and Naoko looked at each other, the had experienced Shinji's mad mood once before and after that; they decided best no to intervene and let his more long term friends handle it. Hikari though about following him before Toji stopped her from getting up,

"I'll go talk to him"

"Thank you Toji-kun"

Toji blushed for a second before turning off in pursuit of Shinji. Toji didn't have to look far before he saw him walking towards the tree where he fell asleep yesterday; from what Toji could make out, Shinji was on the mobile phone already taking to Misato.

"…Yes, I know you want me to practice for this race on Saturday, but I also have to do this as well…" Shinji walked up to the tree, not noticing Toji behind him

'Race?' Toji wondered in his mind

"Don't worry Misato-san…just tell them about the angel attacks and I'll do it" Shinji said angrily "okay…no, I'm fine…Bye"

"Shinji, what the hell?" toji spoke as he approached,

"Wha?" Shinji turned around and saw Toji standing there. Both of them stood there for a minute deciding on their next course of action before Toji started

"I know you annoyed man, but so am I. Don't worry Hikari again, or I'll have something to say about it" Toji said as he turned around and walked off.

Shinji remainded standing there by himself; watching as Toji walked back into the building. He gave up trying to be angry and sat down to think about what had been said, he'd been attacked twice today about the Evangelions, not including this morning's history lesson, as well as the lagging reminder that he had a race to go to this Saturday.

He sat back and wondered if this was really right holding himself back, pretending like he had nothing to do with it. Well, what else would he do, it was pretty clear that Naoko and Kazuma hated the Evangelions. And Shinji saying he was a pilot of one would probably destroy their friendship. He earned for that though, so when it came down to telling the truth and friendship, Shinji was left in a mental bind. He couldn't face it, he didn't eve n like thinking about it.

Shinji dozed off again, this time setting the alarm on his mobile phone to coincide with the school bells.

Location: Katsuragi Tofu shop, Karasuyama-2

Time: 18:06hrs

Date: September 11th, 2017

Shinji walked home again along the side street that led him towards his home above a Tofu shop. This time he had Hikari, Toji and Kenesuke in his trail. It kind of felt out of place to have Hikari invited along to this study session. Maybe it was because he was only known to visit Misato's apartment when Asuka was still living with them. Shinji wondered what Misato meant she'd handle it. In the phone call, Misato said he'd make sure he could go and do the delivery/practice run in peace and still fool his friends into not noticing his absence.

"Shinji-kun?" Hikari asked "Are you sure that Katsuragi-san knows that we're coming?"

"I'm sure, I told her at lunch time that we'd be having a study group and the topic was about the angel attacks"

"Thanks again mate…I never got to battle one, I was one!" Toji joked absent mindedly before realizing the absence of though in what he said and how it affected Shinji. "…not that it was…never mind"

"No…" Shinji said half blankly "…I'm sorry about it; I just wasn't feeling okay about them talking about us like that"

"I'm sure they don't mean it" Hikari added,

"Yea…it's just me" Shinji sounded dejected,

Inside; Misato was still at the counter reading up on some novel or something, obviously board at this time of the day,

"Welcome to the Katsuragi Tofu…welcome back Shinji!" Misato cheerfully smiled, finally someone to talk to. "and hello you three"

While not technically his mother, Misato felt it became her duty, even beyond her service at NERV to be Shinji's guardian, which was a win for her cause she'd have someone to talk AND clean the house for her.

"Good afternoon Ms Katsuragi-san" Toji and Kensuke bowed,

Misato turned to Shinji "why are you late this afternoon?"

"I'm sorry Misato-san, I was sidetracked a bit today" Shinji spoke quietly "I'll start closing up"

"Alright Shinji-kun" Misato said, winking suspiciously "I'm guessing I don't have to tell you about the angel attacks, can you watch the store and close up on time"

"Okay Misato-san" Shinji quickly understanding what she meant by that winking. Normally the tofu shut at 6pm at night thus giving Shinji an excuse to quietly shut the store and quietly drive the Trueno out onto the street quickly drive up the Sohma house estate, then quickly practice his run on the drive down again, park the Trueno and pretend that nothing had happened.

Meanwhile, everyone upstairs walked up the staircase to talk in a sight that, for Shinji at least felt typical. The kitchen was a mess and the dinning table looked like Misato just pushed its former contents to the side, evident where a tablecloth and beer cans were on the far side of the table. Hikari feared to tread on the floor as it was covered in garbage expect where it was a pathway. Other where the couches were the LCD Television was on the woman's volleyball volume up full blast.

Just before it could get any better, a certain household pet in the house was 'Wak'ing his approval on what was on the television screen. When the commercial break came, the Pengiun catapulted the now empty beer can over the couch and on the growing pile of junk behind it which was also the main walkway of the apartment. The Penguin catapulted to its tiny feet and race to the kitchen to retrieve another beer and return before the television returned to the volleyball.

Hikari, Kenesuke and Toji stood there in total disbelief that this was Shinji's home, which as the moment resembled a bachelor pad of some slob. Hikari was in shock while Kenesuke and Toji became distracted by the Television, or partially the volleyball.

"Misato-san…" Hikari started as she elbowed the two guys to gain attention,

"Yes?"

"Shinji-kun lives here right?" Toji asked "he doesn't live next door or something?"

"Yep, his bedroom is behind you"

Kensuke walked over some garbage and into his room, as expected it was as clean as you'd expect from Shinji, neatly folded bed, shirts hanging off hooks, everything blank with the exception of his desk which was the only thing colourful. Kenesuke noticed the photographs and decided against looking at them. Compared to his room, you may as well have been comparing the Ritz with a dump.

"Doesn't Shinji usually clean this place?" Kenesuke asked "…I mean as well as his room"

"Yep!" Misato embarrassingly replied, "Shinji had it clean this morning"

"You mean to tell me that you managed, with your pet…" Kenesuke replied

"…to single handedly wreak this apartment, on a daily basis?" Toji finished for him,

"He's use to it'

Hikari looked around again and sighed 'poor Shinji, I wont blame him for not getting enough sleep again!'

Meanwhile downstairs; Shinji went outside and closed the shutters as quietly as possible. Misato had already loaded the tofu in the car, helping him waste no time escaping from his friends. Shinji turned the key in the ignition slowly, trying to start the car with the least amount of noise, but to no success. Shinji ignored the fact and drove of slowly until he was a safe distance from the Tofu shop, then he started to drive normally towards the mountain.

"Misato-san?" Kenesuke said as he sat down at the table "Wasn't that your car that just left?"

"No, why?" Misato replied quickly,

"That sounded like your car though" Toji added,

"Enough of that" Misato put her beer down at the table "weren't you hear to study?"

"Yes…" they both said

"Aright then" Misato felt like she won that debate, "now you know about the first two angels that attacked…lets start on the third one that attacked"

"Excuse me" Hikari replied "I don't know about the first two"

"Oh that's right" Misato continued "I forgot you're not like these two here, Well the first angel attack was…"

Back on the road, Shinji was driving up the mountainside in the black Trueno, careful not to spill or destroy the container in the backseat of his car. Shinji knew that Misato was mentally timing him as he went up the mountain and down again, of course there were factors like the Sohma hot springs hotel that Shinji couldn't possibly comprehend

'Okay Shinji, it's just like the time trial last night...' he said to himself as he shifted the Trueno up into fourth gear. Shinji felt the burst of acceleration as entered the straightway and up the hill towards the next corner. Shinji knew that he couldn't master the style of uphill drift while he was carrying tofu; his skills weren't nearly developed enough for it.

It was when he wasn't carrying anything that Shinji was confident that his driving skills were in sync with those required to attack this mountain.

Shinji continued his hill climb in the black Trueno unaware of the attention he was grabbing. At the intersection halfway up the mountain, a bright Blue Nissan S13 Silvia was parked on the corner where two guys were standing outside eating takeout dinner.

"Hey…do you hear that?" one of them spoke,

"No…wait" the other one spoke "whatever it is, its coming up"

"Do you want to chase, it"

"Nah, it's probably the locals coming up to start practicing"

"Didn't you hear Takashi last night; he said they had someone they didn't know about coming up"

Before could argue further they ran up to the corner as they heard the engine more clearly coming around the corner. Both of the spotted the vehicle as it cleared the corner,

"Retractable lights?" the Driver noticed before the car rushed past their faces, both of the them were in shock at what they saw as the traced their eyes on the car as it ascended the mountain

"AE86!" they both shouted

"Touya!" on of them yelled

"Come on, I'm going to follow him" Touya said as he dropped his beer can and ran back to the drivers side of his Siliva. The passenger picked up their ramen cups from the car roof and took them inside, with him. After a few more seconds, they rocket started out of the side street and started to accelerate up the mountain.

Meanwhile back at the Tufo shop, Misato was in a deep and detailed explanation over the Angel known as Ramiel, a Flying fortress style Angel that shot any hostile target coming in range. It was the third angel to attack Tokyo-3, and the first time Rei and Shinji worked together on a mission.

"..Shinji then lined up a second shot and fired a single round into the side of the angel, destroying it" Misato lectured as she slipped her beer.

"What happened to unit one" Hikari asked as she furiously wrote done a few pages full of notes that were already A+ quality.

"Unit one was badly damaged, but Shinji helped extract the Plug from the unit and rescued Rei"

Kenesuke and Toji also gave up relying on their memory when Misato stayed quizzing them on things about the battles, the fact they got them wrong was proof they really didn't know more then the tip of the iceberg.

"…Shinji is sure taking his time closing up" Toji noted,

"I told him to watch the store till 7pm when we normally close up"

"Anyway…" Kenuske spoke with a slur "I've been hearing a rumor lately"

"Really?" Misato pretended to be surprised, despite being slightly drunk, she already knew what he was implying,

"Yes, you see there is a really drift battle meet coming up this weekend…and we haven't got any decent locals to represent Karasuyama-2"

"So what are they going to do about a driver for this district?"

Hikari already had noticed something strange about Misato's tone. Asuka had once told her that if she wasn't given the job she had; Misato may have made an excellent police interrogator. It was worrying that Misato knew about this, all Hikari could do is sit back and watch Kenesuke walk into a trap"

"We'll they have got a three contenders" Kenesuke continued, unaware that Misato already knew, but they are especially interested in this Black AE86 Trueno that was spotted driving by someone from Utsunomyia-1"

"What did this guy say about the driver?" Misato asked,

"At the moment, he is assuming that the driver is female because the side of the side of the Trueno had the name of a tofu shop written on in pink"

Kenesuke then realized then and there that Misato already knew about that and was just making a fool of him. Hikari sighed and Toji cursed under his breath.

"Well, thanks for re-informing me" Misato laughed

"Well I won't beat mince words here, what happened, did he confront you?" Keneske continued,

"Yes, he also challenged me to a race this Saturday"

"Don't tell me you're going to accept it Misato-san?"

"I'm not going to, he is looking at the person anyway" Misato "someone else I hired drives the Trueno in the morning, I've asked that person if they wanted to race"

Misato reminded herself back on Saturday afternoon when she went for a drive with Shinji then confronted about the drift battle. After they had a little talk, he made Shinji show her an example of his driving skills, which despite Misato'd own believe she was looking at false hope, she was proven if front of her eyes how skillful Shinji was as an actual road racer and driver.

"Now it finally makes sense" Toji added "they said that the person had some incredible skill driving the downhill on Mt Kira road, no offence Misato-san, I found it hard to believe they were taking about you"

"I'm not that bad!" Misato chuckled,

They all laughed on that comment, Misato especially was laughing as she tried to cover her thoughts on Shinji's whereabouts. Misato looked up at the clock on the wall; it was 6:28, meaning Shinji should've just arrived to the Sohma family hot springs estate. Misato knew that Shinji couldn't go any faster, but she was growing worried that he wasn't on time.

"Ok, now let's talk about the introduction to Asuka and unit 02…"

Meanwhile, as Misato predicted Shinji had just stopped outside the front foyer of the said hotel. Shinji popped the hood and started to get the Tofu out. Shinji looked up at the clock in the car dashboard, 6:25pm; he was on time. Shinji walked into the foyer of the Tofu shop casually and set down his delivery as her waited for her to sign the package. At the moment a family was at the counter talking to the hostess about checking in. Shinji automatically knew what the outcome would be; the family had children, a five year old girl and a eight year old boy.

"I'm sorry, but this hot springs hotel policy does not allow admission for children to stay on the premises. This is so the other clients aren't disturbed by noisy and nosy children" the hostess noted her option sharply and loudly on those two words and especially looking at the children.

"How dare you say that, about our children" the mother spoke "then we're leaving"

The mother walked back to the couch where the children were waiting for their mother to tell them which room to go to. They had been looking forward to their stay in this area for ages and had a week off to do so. The father grunted his disapproval at the hostess as he went off to tell the kids the bad news.

"Ah, Mr. Ikari, how nice to see you late as per usual"

"Sorry madam" Shinji lifted the crate and followed the hostess inside to the kitchen. Shinji often wondered what the hostess did with the tofu if she kept throwing out customers. It wasn't his concern though; she was took the tofu and complained about things he didn't do.

Shinji dropped off the crate in the usual place, picked up the empty one from the morning delivery and walked out, the hostess lady now made her attack here when Shinji purely wanted to get a move on.

"I've been hearing those car noises again, and I know your responsible for them, I heard this car made those noises when it left yesterday"

"I'm sorry but I'm not the one making the noises" Shinji replied, "I found out that there is a sort of racing meet taking place sometime soon"

"you expect me to believe that!" the hostess lady "one of these days, I'm going to have the police watch you come out of here and they'll arrest you…"

As the hostess lady was speaking, the sound of a car engine revving up, with the high pitched squeaks that came relevant with a turbo fan stretched past down the road before it slowed down a few hundred Meters.

"…you were saying?" Shinji said, he took the time the hostess lady was annoyed and shocked to look over at the sedan that was driving starting up and leaving the building. Shinji felt sorry for every family that tried to lodge here, but it didn't mean he couldn't help

"Well, I must be off" Shinji got into the car and drove off, he followed the sedan down the driveway, predictable the family was going right and out of town. Shinji decided to take action then, and followed them as they turned right.

Shinji then started to flash his lights until the father driving inside and noticed the Black Trueno's and drove until he arrived to the rest bay. At the same time, the same bright blue Trueno were watching the two cars approaching,

"There is it's, the Black Trueno, just like Takashi said" the passenger spoke,

"What is he doing? Giving directions?" Touya spoke,

"He just came out of that hot springs hotel…didn't he?"

"Idiot, weren't you listening?" Touya replied "see what it says on the side? The pink letters"

"Katsuragi Tofu shop?" the passenger gazed at the letting on the driver side door "is this some kind of joke?"

Meanwhile, Shinji stop his car. The Sedan did the same; Shinji got out and started walking down towards the driver side window. The driver of the car rolled down the windows, hearing straight away the complaints of the two kids in the backseat.

"Are you still looking for a hotel to stay at?"

"No, according to her" the driver thumbed back towards the hotel, "she's the only hotel around these parts"

"That's not entirely true" Shinji replied "if you go down the road towards Karasuyama-2, there are a few of them, keep driving down the road until you find a intersection, take a left there and head down until the end of the road"

"How do you know this?" the woman in the passenger seated asked

"I Deliver Tofu to all the hotels along Mt Kira road in the morning, I also know that there is a Drift battle race taking place here this Saturday"

"Illegal Street car races?"

"Something like that" Shinji hated the sound of that "your best bet is the hotel I mentioned, it's far out of the way from all the race course and it'll be quiet enough. The is a hot springs hotel there run by someone called Chisame, she'd love to have you stay, she doesn't mind children at all"

"Thank you, for the information" the father replied "even if we'd stayed 'there' we'd go nuts by the sound"

"Just helping out" Shinji stepped up and walked back to his car. He didn't wait long before Shinji put his car into gear and drove down the other end of the bar. Shinji then took a sharp turn and started to speed up as he started his down hill run

"He must've been giving directions" the passenger spoke, "Touya!"

Touya respond and rocket started his car from the parked position the right side of the rest bay, the family looked off as Shinji's black Trueno drove pass then at high speed.

"Who was that?" the woman spoke

"The Tofu Delivery man" he started driving and followed the two cars direction, "I'll ask this Chisame-san to thank him when he does the morning delivery tomorrow"

"Do you think he was one of those road racers?"

"He is how else would he know about the meet?"

They drove by the Sohma family hot springs estate and towards the said hotel that Shinji mentioned,

"That boy looked familiar though" the woman spoke

Meanwhile, Shinji started his run; he'd already cleared the first three corners, being careful to make sure that nobody saw him. Not that was easy to do; already two racers saw him already, the first one being at the intersection and the second one at the Rest bay. What he didn't notice was that it was the same person, and that he was coming up to chase him.

"There he is!" the passenger pointed as he cleared a corner, seeing the Trueno about to enter a corner"

"Alright" Touya shifted into 4th gear for a short amount of time before he braked and shifted won into 2nd gear, he turned the corner and saw the Trueno more clearly this time. Inside the Trueno, Shinji saw as the Bright blue S13 picked up speed and tried to chase the Trueno

"He spotted me?" Shinji saw the twin set of headlights; they weren't getting close very fast, but Shinji knew that he was catching up, Shinji looked over at the clock, 6:40, he had twenty minutes to appear back at the Tofu shop or his cover was blown.

"I've got to pickup the pace" Shinji put the Trueno into fifth gear "I can't let him catch up and see me"

Behind him, the Bright blue S13 saw the Trueno pull away at even more speed. Touya assumed then what the driver knew he was being followed. Shinji felt like a rabbit being chased by a hunter, and the hunter had him in his gun sights. The next corner came up quickly, Shinji hit the brakes and shifted down to second gear, he was already going faster then he knew how to control, Shinji however didn't want to be caught by someone else, it meant that they would want to challenge him as well.

"He's getting away"

"Don't worry, I've got him" Touya replied as he started to slow down for the corner. The S13 suddenly found it self a lot closer to the Trueno as it was exiting the corner. Shinji managed to clear it, just. He couldn't believe himself that he managed to clear the corner at that speed. Whatever it was, he still had the car on his tail and he had to get rid of him.

Shinji looked up at the clock again, 6:50; he managed to get down just over halfway down the course and was still behind time. Maybe he shouldn't have stopped to tell that family. No, he was going faster then ever before, all because he has these people on his tail. He approached another corner, he hit the brake petal hard as he came close to the corner; it was a wide hairpin, so Shinji had plenty of speed allowance. He turned the wheel properly, first left a bit and then all the way right.

The back of the Trueno spun it its back out into a full four wheel drift, Shinji then hit the accelerator slightly and then he tapped down on it slowly; the technique was raw, but highly effective. Behind him; the S13 was lagging behind, on equal speed with the Trueno, but no longer approaching.

"Takashi was right, this guy is fast" Touya commented as he turned into the corner "he might have a badly tuned engine, but he doesn't know how good his driving his"

Shinji saw the headlights of the S13 again in his rearview mirror, they weren't getting closer to him anymore, but they still could see him. Shinji had to think of something to lose them. Then it came to him, the trick he pulled off the other day when Misato was in the car and they avoid hitting the truck,

Shinji lowered his speed from fourth gear and maintained his alignment with the next corner. It was another wide hairpin, so he had room for error, slightly; he could only catch his tires on the edge once before the centrifugal force would force him away and towards the guardrail.

"What's he doing!" Touya saw the Trueno pull off towards the corner in third gear.

"He's crazy; he's going to put himself at the bottom of the valley"

Then Shinji did it, he drove his two wheels on the driver side into the gutter and became locked into a makeshift rail that prevented him from drifting off from the inner corner. From the S13's point of view, he suddenly disappeared around the corner in incredible speed.

"Where did he go!" Touya kicked his brake to slow down,

Touya drove his car around the corner only to see the Black Trueno further ahead then he was expecting. It wasn't a long glimpse as the same car performed an identical disappearing act. Before he could think about catching up, he eased his foot off the accelerator.

"What are you doing?" the passenger asked,

"Forget it…he's too fast, and the tires on this car aren't good enough for racing him now. But I want to see him, whoever it is; I want to see who drives that AE86"

Shinji turned the final corner in the mountain pass and finally saw the bridge; he would be home in five minutes no problem, which was exactly all the time he had left. Quietly Shinji drove the Trueno down the narrow side street and back into the spot beside the Tofu shop. Upstairs Misato heard the noise of the car coming back, this time a lot more quietly then before, she looked up at the clock with a sigh of relief, as it just clicked over to 7pm.

Shinji slowly crept out of the car and walked inside the store, pretending nothing had happened, he looked inside, the door to the upstairs was still locked from his side; it was like nothing had happened. Shinji walked over to the door upstairs,

"Misato, I'm closing up now"

"Alright Shinji-kun, thank you"

"Geez, he must've been bored out of his mind for an hour"

"Shinji-kun knows he has to do his part in the store to live here" Misato said as she walked downstairs,

About another five minutes Shinji-kun walked upstairs for the first time to witness 'today's' cleaning challenge. Hikari saw his face go pale when Shinji first gazed his eyes over his home and even noticed his room door was open. Immediately Shinji went to work, garbage bagging all the beer cans that had piled up around the couch and the kitcken.

Shinji then proceeded to sweep the tiled area and woolen floor; then clean out the mess or messes rather in the kitchen. Hikari, Kenesuke and Toji looked on in absent surprise as the mess that Misato made was quickly turned into a much cleaner apartment that even put an old maid to shame. Shinji sighed as he continued to clean around his friends who were continually listening to Misato telling them about the last few angels that took place.

"So that pretty much concludes it, after that, we all got fired and then NERV was shut down a year later" Misato concluded as she started on her tenth beer,

"Remember that's your last one Misato" Shinji spoke as he continued to pick up the garbage that Misato swept off the table,

"What are you? My father?"

"No, just a concerned roommate that takes care of you more then I should" Shinji laughed

'Poor Shinji' Hikari, Toji and Kenesuke sighed,

It was only seven thirty, but the trio decided they had best get home before their parents wondered.

"Well, thank-you Misato-san for telling us" Hikari first spoke.

"Anytime…" Misato waved them off.

The trio walked down the street until they were out of earshot of Misato, which for that meant a few blocks down the street. They all stopped by a venting machine to collect their on-foot dinners and drinks.

"Poor Shinji-kun" Hikari first said aloud, "I didn't know Misato-san was that much of a slob"

"You're telling me" Toji replied "her diet is always gone south, her drinking is half her income, and I don't know how Shinji lives"

"I got to admit, he is tougher then we'd all think" Hikari continued "Even Asuka couldn't stand Misato for long periods of time, she had too take breaks over at my place"

"To Shinji; the brave, the absolute and the roommate to Misato!" Kenesuke toast his can of warm tea.

"Cheers!" Toji and Hikari added,

Back at the Tofu shop, Shinji and Misato were laughing themselves, seeing they managed to successfully pull off a stunt that only a skilled former Evangelion pilot like Shinji could pull off. Shinji started to explain about his trip up the mountain and how he re-directed a lost family to their friend's hotel after they were rejected by the ever so much annoying Sohma family hot springs estate.

Shinji then decided; that if she was going to be approached by them tomorrow, which sounded like an off chance maybe. Be might as well tell Misato about his unofficial battle with the bright blue car.

"Misato-san" Shinji started "I have something I have to tell you about while I was out"

"Don't tell me…another car spotted you, and tried to outrun you" Misato didn't sound impressed,

"Yea…" Shinji looked dejected again for a moment

"Well" Misato said "Did you beat him?"

Shinji started explaining to her, at first Misato had a slightly surprised about the car he described, the later she was seriously listening to as Shinji told her about the unofficial battle that he was in and how he managed to get away from the car with his special trick. Misato looked at Shinji for a moment

"…I'm sorry, Misato-san. I didn't intend for you to deal with anyone else anyway"

Misato sat their staring at Shinji.

"'You know…Asuka is right, you say that word too much" Misato knocked Shinji's head lightly "Don't worry about it Shinji, personally I don't mind, I just don't want you to get injured"

"But…Misato-san"

"Shinji-kun," Misato held both of his hands "ever since we moved here I've been trying to make you have a hobby, if taking the company car and driving recklessly down a dangerous mountain at high speed is something you like doing, I'm not stopping you"

"Oh well, I think I've had enough fun for one day anyway" Misato-san spoke looking at the clock, "come on Shinji, time for some sleep"

"Hai" Shinji replied. Shinji returned to his room and lay down on the bed. Another long day; Shinji got up and properly got changed for bed. When he did, he looked over at the picture on his desk again; still looking at the fresh faced German girl standing next to him, smiling. Shinji went back bed and started smiling looking at Asuka, hoping to see her again one day.


	5. Episode 04: Battle! AE86 Vs Sileighty

After Evangelion

Episode 4: Battle! AE86 Vs Sileigthy

Shinji woke up this morning knowing today was going to be another long and frustrating day, like back in the days when he was an Evangelion pilot Shinji got up everyday wondering when the next angel attack was. This time, it was different, he wasn't desperately seeking an escape from it; Instead he was actually anticipating is slightly. He'd already outrun two cars on the mountain so far, but of course on unfair terms he had to admit. Misato said she'd come up with him to the battle and see him off.

Shinji had practiced all week, fortunately without any more incidents of cars following him, Shinji managed to perfect and match the speed that he had managed to do the time the Bright blue Silvia was chasing him down the hill that evening. Despite all this Shinji still acted normal, his nerves and mind seriously not even tense about the idea of racing in front of people.

"Shinji" Kenesuke spoke as he poked his friend again,

"What?" Shinji replied, snapping out of his stare into space.

"Are you watching the store, or watching mars?"

"Sorry, I just have a lot on my mind"

"Well that's a first"

Again, it was Saturday and again Shinji and Kenesuke, being the only employee's of Mecha Gamers, they did all the shifts available. Shinji wondered if they could try again at hoaxing someone from school to do their job for them every now and then. It was a passing thought but Shinji knew that there was a dying chance that would happen. Business was especially busy today for some reason; it wasn't golden week for another month. The only explanation that Shinji could come up with was the Drift battle meet on top of Mt Kira tonight, but that didn't mean anything.

Shinji knew just about every Otaku in town by the fact they were the only store in town of their description. Before the day got any boring, Shinji decided to read a magazine from the gamers rack. Together, Shinji and Kenesuke could both agree that despite the people coming into the store, it was genuinely more boring then normal.

"Hmmm, Hey Shinji" Kenesuke asked out of nowhere "do you want to come to the Drift battle with me and Toji?"

"Nah, Misato said that the driver didn't want to do the battle anymore" Shinji said as he flicked a page in the magazine

"What!" Kenesuke fell off his chair, grabbing the attention of a few middle school girls, some of which giggled at Kenesuke's own stupidity and overreaction.

"Don't worry Kenesuke" Shinji replied "Misato told me this morning that he is okay and ready to go"

"Don't scare me like that man" Kenesuke "the whole of Karasuyama-2's road racer community is holding out on a limb that the Tofu delivering AE86 will come and save their pride"

"Is the race really that important?" Shinji pondered on his own 'Hmmm, I'm not just racing for myself, I'm racing for others as well'

Kensuke could have gone on forever explaining what was so important about this race before a certain person walked in the door, Shinji almost immediately recognized the person from last week. She'd come in to pick up an order her older brother had put in, but the older brother forgot that it would be until two days ago his order would be in.

"Good afternoon" Shinji replied "how may I help you"

"Um…I came in here last week to pick up an order, but they said it wasn't due in until a few days ago" the girl looked up at, and realized who she was talking to.

"Sure thing" Shinji replied "Do you have your receipt?"

"Of course" the girl searched her pocket; in the meantime, Shinji motioned Kenesuke to out the back and find the package they were talking about. He didn't seem too pleased to be doing all the work that Shinji should be doing,

"Remember Shinji, you already have a wife" Keneuske chuckled, before disappearing behind the door.

"You're married!" the girl shrieked "I didn't know"

"I'm not married, nor do I have a girlfriend" Shinji corrected, "I'm in high school, remember?"

"Found it!" the girl retrieved a docket from her bag and gave to Shinji. He looked at the receipt; it was not even close to the one that came she had given him last week. It was a receipt for a supermarket down the road; it even showed what the person bought.

"Yep, that's the one" Shinji lied "I've already sent Kenesuke to get the box set and the figurine"

"thank you"

"So when are you starting school?" Shinji asked her.

"Next week" she replied "I've been busy all week helping my brother set up shop"

"Shop?"

"He worked in Tokyo-2, as a mechanic. He wants to start up a repair shop of his own, but dad disagreed and mum agreed"

"I see" Shinji felt like that story was similar, but it wasn't, both his mother and father had the same goal, but his mother paid the price for it; whom to this day was entombed in Eva unit 1. Shinji had met her once; But only when she was absorbed into the unit himself.

For as long as nobody destroyed the Eva, Shinji held out hope that Yui, her true mother would return to him. At the moment, it , and unit 02 were all that remained of the Evangelions, the mass production models were all killed when the were exposed for the first time. And unit 00 was left as scrap metal and all the spines of the failed models were destroyed.

For now, Eva unit 01 and Eva unit 02 were held in cage 7 awaiting a fate which looked more and more like the scrap yard.

"Back…" Kenesuke walked back to counter with the two items in question, automatically the girl blushed madly when she saw the figurine. Given the nature it, Shinji wouldn't be surprised. Shinji quickly resoved the issue by picking out the largest bag they for packages like that.

"Here we go" Shinji put the figurine and DVD box set into the cloth bag. "On the house, I think it'd be a good idea to hide that figurine"

"Thank you" the girl bowed "if I'm going to your school, I should introduce myself, I'm Aisaka Okochiba"

"I'm Shinji Ikari, pleased to meet you"

"And I'm Kenesuke Aida"

"Thank you, I should be off" Aisaka spoke "thank you again"

"No problem…" Shinji trailed off that sentence as the girl walked out the door and then catapulted into a full run down the street,

"What is it with you?" Kenesuke slapped Shinji over the head "you have to seriously tell me your secret"

Kenesuke and Shinji resumed the bored positions and continued to read the magazines they pilfered from the racks. Kenesuke was deep into reading his Kodansha magazine while Shinji was reading the PS4 monthly. Everyone now and then someone would come to the counter and pay for something and walk off, but usually it was a magazine or a book and occasionally a CD. Shinji didn't know why business was up today, how one illegal event, do all this.

"Shinji!" Kenesuke heard the noise of a car engine coming from down the street

"Huh?" Shinji closed his book and paid attention to the front set of windows. Outside a Maroon Nissan skyline GT-R 32 was driving down the street when the driver noticed the small shop. He grinned and slowed down to park in a spare space just outside the shop itself. Kenesuke had walked up to the front of the store pretending nothing had happened.

'A R32!' Kenesuke screamed in his mind, he quietly and as calmly as possible turned around and walked back to the counter before grabbing Shinji by the neck,

"A R32! You have got to be kidding me!"

"Hold on!" Shinji pushed Kenesuke way "What are you talking about?"

"Excuse me" a low voice came from the other side of counter. Shinji noticed the mad standing there, neither Shinji nor Kenesuke saw him walk into the store and approach the counter. He was in fact the owner of the said car,

"Afternoon sir, how can I help you" Shinji was the first respond,

"I was wondering if you had anything on this list" the man gave Shinji a small piece of paper. Since starting to work for Mecha gamers, Shinji had accustomed to daily habit of Otaku's wanting the silent treatment done on their purchases. As he quickly learnt; many of them had strange purchases, and this person wasn't any different. He whispered over to Kenesuke

"The original Oh my goddess…OST…1, 2 and 3. CD" Shinji whispered very harshly to his co-worker.

Kenesuke nodded and casually walked over to the CD stand and went to work looking for the said CD's

"You're the owner of the R32 outside?"

"Yea" the man spoke "I'm heading up to watch this battle between Takashi's Sileigthy and some local person they said was spectacular"

"That's quite and impressive car you have sir" Kenesuke said "I'm going to watch that battle too, they said that the AE86 was spotted last Tuesday night by Touya while he was practicing"

"Touya raced him!" the man spoke abruptly "…I see your well aware of who everyone is, I should introduce myself, I'm Keiichi Yamazaki"

Kenesuke seemed to take it to heart the meaning of that name.

"You're the leader of the Red barons?" Kensuke asked,

"Yes, you've heard of us?"

"Who hasn't, your considered heroes" Kenesuke continued "I didn't think I'd ever see you in this store Yamazaki-san"

"And I expect that you'll make no mention of me being here tonight when you're talking to everyone"

"No problem, your secret is safe with us, right Shinji?"

"Right…6000 yen for the lot" Shinji spoke as he scanned the bar code on each one and put them in a non-transparent bag. Keiichi paid for the lot and left as soon as he left. Kenesuke walked to the door and saw the Maroon R32 drive off down the street.

"What do you suppose he wanted that music for?" Kenesuke spoke "but it ruins my image of him; Keiichi Yamazaki is famous around the region for his abilities drifting"

"Is he really that good?" Shinji asked

"He is the considered the first genuine Drift King; post 2nd impact in the area of course"

Shinji thought to himself; 'Drift King'. That was a term he hadn't heard of before; but what did it mean? From the looks of Kenesuke's reaction, it was something of great importance. Shinji wondered again about tonight, suddenly he realized what he was up against; this wasn't just one race to settle something, this was an entire underground league he was entering.

Despite this, Shinji remained calm; after all, he had been in worse battles then the drifting variant.

Location: Katsuragi Tofu Shop, Karasuyama-2

Time: 18:45hrs

Date: September 16th, 2017

Evening fell over the valley surrounding the local township. But just as the stores around the commercial district close, the road racers started gathering, from off the motorway, a stream of sports cars of various descriptions driving down the main streets and up towards Mt. Kira road. Shinji was walking done the all too familiar side street towards his home, hearing the humming of the traffic going up the hill.

'I wonder how Misato is' he wondered as continued walking. Shinji started thinking about the match again, to him, it was nothing more then an errand that Misato had setup for him to do. Naturally, it was something that Shinji had to do; otherwise the outcome would be quite dramatic. Shinji looked ahead and then was shocked at the sight ahead of him. It wasn't that something was there, but something wasn't. Shinji noticed that the Black Trueno was missing from its usual parking spot next to the tofu shop.

"What's going on?" Shinji said as he walked up the front of the store. When Shinji remembered they were locked shut. He went to enter the store through the backdoor. Again all the lights were out and nobody were out; Shinji didn't even the television on upstairs of the 'wak'ing of the Penguin.

'What is Misato up to?' Shinji thought 'this better not be some cruel joke'

Shinji opened up the staircase door and walked upstairs into the house section of their home. When Shinji got up there, he was left with a few surprises. The first most notable was the absence of filth; the entire house was clean, no beer cans, no failed attempts at making lunch, it was like Misato didn't live here. Shinji walked down to her room, inside it was exactly like he would expect; ten fold messier then a university student's dorm room.

Shinji walked back the dinning room to look for evidence that Misato even lived here anymore; he then walked to his room. The dull room was the same as he felt it expect for one thing. On his desk was a message written down and left for him to read. Shinji put his bag down and started to read it;

'Dear Shinji; I've gone down to a tire fitting place to get your car some new racing tires for tonight's drift battle' Shinji replayed the message in his mind 'I've taken penpen with me so don't worry about feeding him his dinner, I should be back buy around 8pm. the guy rang me back and told me that the battle begins at 9pm'

"Jeez, leave me to worry why don't you" Shinji said to himself 'good'.

It was almost 7pm, which meant that Shinji had the place to himself until Misato came home. Shinji decided to start making himself dinner; he didn't doubt that Misato would have taken the opportunity to have a takeout meal instead of Shinji's daily diet of miso and tofu. It was quite weird not hearing Misato's latest rant and penpen being perverted with the television in the background.

When Shinji thought about it, this was the first time he was home alone every since Karasuyama-2; re remembered in Tokyo-3 all the times that Misato was working one night, but Asuka or penpen was usually home to keep him company.

That though reminding him of something, Shinji left the kitchen and went into his room. Inside he walked to his desk and retrieved from his desk the same photograph that he main a daily habit to look at. Shinji knew how annoying this may have looked to anyone, but to Shinji, it was something important. In all the other photographs that they were in, Asuka was always pushing Shinji out of the frame or doing something stupid. In this one, Shinji and Asuka both smiled together for the first time.

Shinji took the photograph back to the table and put it down on the table; as at threat pieces moment, Shinji's dinner was done and ready to eat. He walked out with his dinner and put it down on the table and started eating. It was a lonely dinner, but Shinji felt like he had company right in front of him.

In the process of Shinji's on minded conversation, he didn't hear the engine of the Trueno coming down the street and parking itself. Misato pulled herself and her favorite warm water penguin out of the car and walked up, she looked high up towards the window, and saw that only the dinning room light was on

"He didn't decide to run away" Misato smiled "that's a good sign"

Misato quietly walked inside and tried to mask her approach as much as possible, it didn't help as she carried penpen along with her with his mouth shut. Judging by the fact that Shinji hadn't gone downstairs to annoy her, it meant that he didn't even know that she had come home. Misato noticed the door leading upstairs was left open, leaving Misato to walk in and creep up on Shinji. Instead of doing so Misato decided to look in on him to see what he was doing.

Slowly creeping up the stairs without penpen, Misato managed to get a clear view of Shinji eating at the table, looking at the picture. To Misato, if felt like a dagger in her own heart, seeing Shinji like he was, it didn't feel so surprising that she felt a little guilt for the current situation

'He can't deny it, he really misses her' Misato spoke 'they always were fighting each other, but when they separated, I didn't know how much it hurt him'

Misato sat down on her stairs and though to herself; she didn't know how to approach him now, to him; she'd just out of the blue. For the drift battle, Misato decided to get some decent tires for the race. She felt incurably guilt now for not telling Shinji she'd be out helping him win the race, well; there was only thing she could do now.

"Shinji-kun, I'm home" Misato said as she pretend to walk up the stairs she'd already half scaled

"Welcome home Misato-san" Shinji turned to look at his guardian "did you get the new tires…"

Shinji knew automatically from the expression that Misato had on her face that she'd been there for some time before. Misato was excellent at figuring out other people, but terrible at hiding her own expressions.

"…and just how long you were there?" Shinji finished his sentence

"Sorry Shinji-kun…" Misato said as she took a seat, Shinji prompted faced the photo frame down on the table. She didn't know why he did that, he knew that she was what was on the picture, was it his own feelings of guilt that he constant looks at that photo to remind himself of her?

"Well, aren't you going to get changed?" Shinji said as he looked at Misato's attire. Apparently Misato failed to change prior to leaving to get the tires changed and was still wearing the Tofu shop apron and her daily work clothes. Misato agreed that both of them should change, as Shinji was still in his school uniform, so he couldn't say for himself that he was ready to go to the drift battle yet.

"Alright" Misato looked up at the clock; 7:45 "we have thirty minutes before he have to leave and go to this battle"

"Alright" Shinji spoke standing up and taking his plate to the kitchen

"By the way, why didn't you make me dinner?" Misato asked from her room

"Cause I can smell the ramen from your mouth…" Shinji said as he washed the dishes "…From here!"

Location: road rest stop R43, Mt Kira road, just outside Karasuyama-2

Time: 8:43pm

Date: September 16th, 2017

"So cool! So cool! So cool!" Kenesuke repeated as his video camera tracked over the dozens of parked cars on the left side of the parking bay. Keneuske, Toji got a life in Kazuma father's AE92, which they parked just down the road. From the starting point; they decided to move down to the first set of hairpins and watch the battle between AE86 and the sileighty, but first they wanted to be able to see who this mysterious driver was that Misato recruited.

"Shinji doesn't know what he is missing out on" Kazuma spoke as he panned another glace at the maroon R32 that was parked on the other side of the street.

"But you know Shinji by now" Toji said as he focused his eyes on the girls instead of the cars "he's not a people person, he'd rather be stuck at home writing a 10,000 word essay or working then see this"

"He has no life" Kazuma "was he like this in Tokyo-3, all the time?"

"Yea, but he had is reasons I suppose" Kenesuke replied, he knew of the reasons, but he wasn't obvious going to tell someone like Kazuma.

"Hey!" Someone yelled "Takashi! The Hachi-Rokuis here!"

Amongst the road racers, Takashi was waiting patiently for his compertion to arrive, he'd already heard about how Touya tried to beat this car, and failed. So he was especially interested now in seeing who the driver of the car was. When he met Misato, he initially fell in love with the beauty figure that was Misato, and somehow believed she was a road racer; but was quickly disappointed that the driver was not her.

Takashi walked over to the announcer who was Yuki.

"Confirm it" he said quickly,

"Can you describe it?"

"It's definitely a Hachi-Roku, pop-up lights, black, and it's got something written on the side in pink!"

"That's the driver" Takashi said,

Everyone around the drivers section had heard about the incident where he was overtaken. Everyone was excited and starting to clear the staring line for the car to arrive. Back where Kenesuke and Toji were,

"The what?" Toji spoke

"The Trueno" Kazuma quickly explained "it's just another word for it"

"86?" Toji again question, that doesn't mean anything to me

"Well the car was famous pre second impact; it's got a good reputation as a good car for handing, stocks about 150 horsepower if well tuned and rated at about 8000rpm"

"And the sileighty?" Kenesuke paid attention to Kazuma

"Well, according to the people I've been talking to; Takashi has it rated at 250 horsepower in his engine"

"Then that means the Trueno is outclassed in engine power" Toji replied in surprise,

"I don't know, but everyone says it's a fair match"

"That's not fair!" Kenesuke and Toji both replied,

"Well, whatever the matter" Kazuma looked over at the Sileighty "Remember it managed to outrun him once"

"That's true"

Meanwhile, the said black Trueno was starting to make its assent to the top of the mountain, inside Misato in passenger seat with Shinji driving, looking at all the people edged up on the corners and the hills on the side of the roads.

"Shinji-kun?" Misato looked over to Shinji, whom looked genuinely concerned or bored. The two expressions were very similar to each other that even Misato had a hard time defining them.

"Sorry Misato-san, is something the matter" Shinji said as his train of though was ended,

"It's nothing, but are you feeling tense about this" Misato asked,

"Not at all" Shinji said "I've just got to race don't I?"

Misato felt a cold stone hit her; it was similar to something Shinji said when he first piloted Eva. Was that how he was looking at it; as a battle sortie? No, he wouldn't see it like that, it's not like before, he's not fighting to stay alive or anything, and it's entirely up to him. But what wasn't true, Misato was making him do this as a sort of weird punishment.

"Shinji-kun" Misato started "I'm not making you do this as a punishment"

"Huh?" Shinji said as he turned a corner "But didn't you say last weekend that"

"Buying me takeout was your punishment" Misato said "this is for you"

"But why did you do it?"

"I'm doing this because you seem bored nowadays" Misato sighed as she continued "all you do all day is going to school and work. If Asuka were here right now, she'd explode at you for not doing anything with your spare time"

"Misato-san…" Shinji felt her point, she was right,

"I'm worried about you Shinji…" Misato continued "so please enjoy this and I hope you learn from it"

"I will" Shinji said as they came up the final few approaches to the staring line

"Its here!" some yelled,

The crowds we're excited by the excitement of the arrival of the said car. Shinji looked around and suddenly embraced his first look at the opponents, lined up on the left side were dozens of cars from various races. Shinji was impressed at the display of vehicles that were lined up waiting the competition to being. two Mazda MX-5's, various Nissan skylines and other Toyota's; but somehow Shinji felt that the Black Trueno he was driving was the star attraction for some reason.

"Guide the driver to the start line" Yuki shouted to someone

"Start getting the road clear!" yelled someone on the radios

Shinji started driving to where a person was guiding him to turn around, Shinji managed to turn it around line it up with the White sileighty waiting beside him was already in postion waiting for the opponent to get ready. Shinji stopped the car and waited, Misato sitting next to him nudged him,

"Aren't you getting out of the car?" Misato said

"Oh?" Shinji said "on the count of three"

"Ok, Three" Misato replied,

Shinji sighed and opened the door, getting out too look at the people looking at his car. Everyone gazed in surprise instead as they saw the young driver get out of the car and waited for Misato to start explaining. Takashi and Touya both looked at Shinji and both suddenly had an outburst of anger; this wasn't right. In the crowds; Kenesuke, Toji and Kazuma were shocked that their friend who said he wasn't even coming was there, representing as a driver.

"Katsuragi-san" Takashi started "is this some sort of joke? Is this your driver!"

"Yep, Takashi-san" Misato replied cheerfully, "This is Shinji Ikari-san, he's my exclusive driver for the tofu shop, and also lives with me as my adopted son"

Takashi already liked Misato for her charm and beauty, and to learn that his competitor, who beat him the same day last week and had her as a mother? Was Misato pulling his leg?

"Shinji!" spoke someone's voice from the crowd "Excuse me, Excuse me…"

From the corner of the crowd, Kenesuke, Kazuma and toji stumbled out between a group of girls, and walked towards the group.

"Shinji; Are you nuts?" Kenesuke grabbed his friend,

"No, I'm fine"

"Shinji, you're the driver of the Black trueno?" Toji asked

"Surprised?"

"Hell yea" Kazuma "do you really think you're able to go up against him?" he pointed at Takashi, who was talking to Misato about the race conditions.

"I'm alright" Shinji replied before turning to Takashi and Misato "Can we just get this over with"

"How is this competition though? He's in high school?" Takashi complained.

"Now, now" Misato said in a sweeter voice "Do you really suppose that my employee isn't a good driver?"

"Ms Katsuragi-san, drift battles aren't a joke" Touya stepped in "if your 'son' here tries as an amateur, he could wreak the car and possibly injure spectators"

"Touya-san, I am not the kind of person that jokes around" Misato argued "and I'm not joking when I say my son here had done the morning and evening delivery shift, every day, for the past 18 months"

"18 months?" Touya and Takashi replied is surprise,

"Takashi-san, Touya-san, why are you so against racing this person" a deeper voice said from behind them. Even Misato was caught by surprise even though she saw him coming earlier.

"Keiichi-san!" Takashi replied

"Road racers come from all backgrounds, and they come here to race as equals. When it comes down to it, we are here to learn from each other, enhance our skills in these battles; there isn't a reason why you should neglect this young man from being a road racer"

Everyone, even including Shinji and his friends were in awe at the words the region's drift king spoke. Shinji took special notice to him now,

"No, it isn't" Takashi sounded defeated "but what about the crowds?"

"I'm sure he'll avoid them"

Everyone agreed that was the end of the argument, disregard his opinion of Shinji, they were going to race. Shinji turned to them for a moment;

"Just a minute, I need to ask someone for something" Shinji turned to Kenesuke "Can I borrow your camera?"

"What?" Kenesuke replied

"Don't ask why, can you mount it somewhere in the passenger side seat"

"Alright, but I want it intact when I get it back" Kenesuke demanded

Shinji thanked him and they walked to the car to get ready. Kenesuke managed to wedge the video camera in between the headrest and the main part of the seat's backing.

"Alright Shinji" Kenesuke said, "I'm going to run down to the first corner and watch your first three turns, good luck"

Misato walked down with the trio to the first corner to watch Shinji's start. In the meantime, Keiichi was presiding over the race's final countdown.

"Radio points checked in" someone said to him "we're ready to go"

Shinji opened his car door and waited for them to start; he looked over at Takashi who seemed to have calmed down since the argument before

"I'll introduce myself again" he spoke "I'm Takashi Sagara"

"Shinji Ikari"

"I'll remember that"

"Alright…starting the countdown!" Keiichi yelled at the two cars

Shinji and Takashi got into their respective cars and started them up. He looked over to the camera and made it start recording

"10…9…8…7…6…5…4…3…2…1…GO!"

At that moment the Black Trueno and the White sileighty floored it and rocketed out of the starting position, passing on either side of Keiichi. Shinji started shifting it up to second gear and then third. Shinji felt his nerves were on fire as he started out driving down the stretch. Inside the Sileighty; Takashi wasn't sparing any time driving in front of the Trueno and speeding out towards the first corner.

"So that's the difference in power" Toji sighed as he saw the Sileighty started to break away from the Trueno and darting towards them. Takashi braked ferociously as he turned the first corner and performed an almost perfect drift. Shinji start to speed up a little more, already in fourth gear. Everyone but Misato became scared as they saw him approach the first corner of the drift as what was considered a suicidal speed for a 'first timer'.

"He's going to crash!" Kenesuke started looking for somewhere to jump aside

'Alright, now!' Shinji hit the brakes and started to move the steering wheel in the opposite direction of the corner and then all the way in the direction of the corner, swinging the back corners of the Trueno outwards, then Shinji hit the acceleration and rocketed again from the apex of the corner and back onto the stretch. The back of the AE86 swung so wide around the corner, it almost was rubbing the guard rail where Misato was standing.

Toji and Kenesuke came out of hiding behind Kazuma who was also scared stiff. When the regained composure they turned to the hair pin that the Trueno was now tackling, again Shinji was taking a wide turn in second gear. Inside Shinji was driving as fast as he could under the pressure that suddenly collapsed on him, ahead starting to turn into the corner was his goal, Takashi's Sileighty.

Shinji accelerated as fast as he could, soon enough he heard the familiar ringing noise of that meant he was driving over 100km/h. he saw the corner up ahead, he dropped his speed and shifted down from fourth gear to second again and kicked the brakes again. His drift was more refined this time around the first two corners; he was finally getting him rhythm together

'Accelerate, up to 4…' Shinji said to himself as he sped up on the straightway between the corners 'brake, down to 2…' he braked and shifted down to second gear as he screeched around the corner.

In front of him Takashi was ahead by only 3 or 4 seconds, but he could feel the pressure of the driver behind him. What was this pressure, he didn't know; all that mattered now was he continued to drive down the hill his best. Takashi continued to bore out the energy his car could handle and Drift his car around every corner.

'He's gaining on me' Takashi looked in the rearview mirror 'Well, I'll give it to Misato, she isn't lying, which means I won't hold back!"

The two cars continued on the course for the bottom of the mountain, Shinji knew for a fact that, what he was doing now was catching up but he had to do better if he wsa going to catch up to Takashi.. In the meantime, Misato and the trio started walking back to the start line to get a live radio report

"…the black Trueno is pulling pretty good and high speed drifts" the other person on the other end radio replied "…I can't believe we haven't heard of him before!"

Kenesuke and Toji looked at each other, but looking for answers to this unnatural occurrence that was taking place in front of them. Not only was Shinji able to survive the corner turns, but he was doing speculator according to these people. Kazuma was just as equally surprised.

"Excuse me, Yamazaki-san" Misato asked for the person standing with the radio committee people.

"Ah, you must be Ms Katsuragi-san" Keiichi replied in surprise "please call me Keiichi"

"Thank you Keiichi-san, you can call me Misato"

"Your son is doing quite well for his first drift battle; they say he is only 4 seconds behind now"

"Thank you" Misato replied "could you please give me a ride down to the bottom?"

Keiichi was taken by surprise by the request, Kazuma replied as well with extreme interest, as well the two radio committee members next to him.

"Shinji-kun and I will be heading home once this battle is ended, and I didn't want to be ballast in the car"

"Of course, I completely understand" Keiichi nodded,

"We'll come down in our AE92" Kazuma turned to Kenesuke and Toji who nodded in agreement. Keiichi nodded as they walked off to their respective cars. Kenesuke borrowed Kazuma's CB radio to listen into the updates over the course of the race. Misato walked over to the Maroon R32 that Keiichi pointed out, Soon enough he raced over and opened up the car, Misato and Keiichi got in and started driving off

"Thank you again" Misato said as she looked behind and saw Kazuma father's AE92 driving down behind them

"That's alright" Keiichi replied "I actually wanted to ask you some more questions regarding your driver Shinji. I saw him today working in the gaming store, but he didn't see the road racer type, yet he had a strong aura that he was one"

"You saw him at his work?" Misato wondered why a tough and cool driver like Keiichi was there in the first place.

Meanwhile down about halfway down the hill, the white Sileighty and the black Trueno were in a heated battle between them. Shinji had managed to reduce his time from 4 seconds to 2 seconds, but it was still not enough. Takashi was still pulling away from Shinji in the longer straightway and Shinji was catching up in the Corners; Shinji's strength was cornering for now. But he had to increase his pace.

Ahead was a wider drift; Shinji knew now that his time to start pouring on the steam was now or never. Shinji jumped the speed up a bit on the next straightway; he held up to fifth gear and tried his best. The corner quickly came up Shinji decided to try it, a handbrake drift. In one go Shinji braked first with his foot and then with he hand, he taped on the handbrake, he held is hand onto the wheel as the force back pushed him to strain to his limits.

The Trueno performed a four wheel drift it was maintaining speed around the corner, it was then that Shinji noticed by accident he was still in third gear and it was straining the engine slightly and he was low enough to be in third. But Shinji knew this was fast, faster then he knew how to drive. But he was able to handle it, Shinji leveled out and to surprise there was the backend up the sileighty

'No way, he caught up?" Takashi frustrated 'That driver is good, just as I expected he should be, but this battle isn't over yet!'

Takashi pulled his car into gear and started to move away from the Trueno, inside Sh8inji saw him, clearly driving way towards the corner, ahead was another wide corner, Shinji knew himself that he now in equal with this guy, all he had to do now was overtake the Sileighty and finish first.

"The Hachi-Roku has caught up to the sileighty; it's becoming an incredible drift battle!" the radio announcer called over the radios

Inside the AE92, Toji and Kenesuke doubted their own hearing as they heard the reports come through; they obviously were going to attack Shinji about this late.

"Is the same Shinji we know?" Toji asked "not some weirdo clone?"

Shinji knew that he was running out of corners, he had to pull of his special now, if he didn't, he'd run out of wider corners and his trick would become impossible. Shinji did another full four wheel drift around the corner and sped up to catch up to the white sileighty. Shinji then saw his opening, he refused to let his foot hit the brake all out, instead he eased on it and shifted down to third gear, he hadn't tried this in third before, but he had to get ahead of Takashi now.

In front, Takashi started to brake for the drift around the wide hairpin, when he saw in his rearview mirror the Trueno start to come in on the inside of his drift line,

"He's not slowing down!" Takashi yelled "has he lost his mind, he cant drift at that speed!"

Shinji was careful with this, to saw were a sign was, that was his starting point for this trick, Shinji shifted down to third gear and kept his speed, ready to handbrake drift if he had to. The wheels inched closer to the edge of the road until they dropped. Four inches down and a few niches inward, Shinji was locked in on the gutter, he then hit the accelerator and kept himself running at speed. Takashi could believe his eyes as he saw the Trueno brake on the inside of him and pass him in front as he pull his drift, he had to expand the sharpness out to a wider drift so he or Shinji didn't hit each other.

'that worked well' Shinji though to himself before he noticed he was in front, Shinji hopped his driver side wheels off the gutter and gained the lead in front of the Sileighty, Shinji knew he hadn't won yet, but he did fulfill himself as he drove in the lead,

'How did he do that?' Takashi was both mad and scared, when he thought about it, Shinji didn't have any room; he would have been a few inches short 'Well done, but I'm not done yet show me your trick, right in front of me!'

Shinji felt the front bumper of the Sileighty hovering very close to his rear bumper. Shinji knew that he had to pull that trick off again. He moved closer to the edge of the road on the left turn, this was the final hairpin turn, after that the technique Shinji had was useless. He carefully edged the wheels on the side of the road and shifted the brakes.

'Come on; once more and ill be able to lose him Shinji said as he identified the mad standing with the camera the mark where his wheels should hit the gutter. Without anymore as a few seconds and a breath; Shinji pushed his Trueno's passenger side wheels into the gutter and hooked himself into the corner, grabbing the corner and securing his speedy escape from the chasing sileighty

To Takashi; like before when he first saw Shinji; he disappeared right before him. The Trueno roared around the corner like a roller coaster, nothing expect the gravity trying to push the weight of the car away towards the outside edge. Shinji smiled as he saw the headlights in the rearview mirror disappeared around the corner. Shinji came out to the straightway, almost hitting someone foolishly hanging his head out, a few meters away from the end of the corner. Shinji turned the wheel and bounced the Trueno's passenger side wheels onto the road.

"This is the last hairpin! The Hachi-Roku has past the Sileighty and breaking away!"

Misato staring doubting her own hearing, Keiichi started laughing in his mind. 'Takashi is right; the Hachi-Roku is a force to be dealt with, especially its driver'

At the finish line the radio committee member started reporting his commentary, everyone had heard about how close the battle was and wanted to hear how it ended.

"This is the finish line! I can hear the tires squealing, there really close!"

Shinji turned the second last corner with a now perfect four wheel drift, in the impulse and excitement of the battle, Shinji's skills were improving on every corner, his speed was now faster and his time more refined. But he had to push the heart of the Trueno even more now; it was a matter of now or never.

"Finish line again…here they come, the Hachi-Roku is in front…the sileighty not far behind, its now a final run to the finish" the commentator yelling in the radio

Shinji kept his foot on the accelerator, and did his best to block the sileighty from taking over. Shinji was in fifth gear finally, and racing with all his heart set on the finish line. Behind him Takashi saw the inevitable,

"AE86 Wins!" the announcer screamed into the radio, "not a record time, but it was close!"

Shinji felt a sigh of relief as he eased off the brakes and used the 200 meters ahead to slow down his car. He knew the outcome, if the sileighty was slowing down as well and turned around back towards the parking lot where the finish line was. Shinji did the same; he may as well stay there and talk to Misato at the top of mountain. He parked his car in the spare spot behind the white sileighty where the driver was already out and waiting,

Shinji turned the engine off for a moment before he breathed a sigh of relief. Before he could continue; Shinji turned to the passenger seat and stopped the recording mode and turned the camera off. He was at the bottom, safe and he won on top of that.

Shinji saw Takashi leaning on the side of his car looking back at him. Shinji gained the courage and got out of the Trueno and walked up to him.

"I know what you want me to say" Takashi said "and I'll say it; despite your age, you're not a bad driver"

"Thank you, Sagara-san" Shinji spoke, "your not as bad yourself"

"Call me Takashi" he replied as he looked for a cigarette lighter "We'll meet again, Shinji-san"

As coolly as he was, Takashi walked off towards the crowd, Shinji decided to wait, until someone approached him, it was the radio announcer at the finish line;

"Ikari-kun congratulations!"

"Thanks" Shinji sighed

"I've been told that Keiichi-san is driving Ms Katsuragi down and they'll be here shortly, and an AE92 was spotted behind them"

Shinji had sighed some relief, for a moment; it felt like he would have to drive all the way up again and get Misato and down again. Shinji was almost shaking in excitement as the adrenaline moved all over his body. Shinji nodded in agreement and told the announcer he'll stay there until Misato and everyone else met up with him.

'I won, everyone said I might lose, but I won' Shinji said to himself as he walked over to the venting machines, everyone for some reason was keeping there distance, did Takashi tell them too? It didn't matter; Shinji was shaken up by his own victory. He got himself a warm green tea and walked back.

'But I didn't win by that much, if it was anything, it was luck and myself being excited' Shinji said to himself 'I need to learn more about my car'

Just as he was returning, Keiichi's R32 and Kazuma's AE92 came down the stretch and turned into the parking lot. All the girls screamed as Keiichi's R32 parked it. As soon as he stopped, Misato got out and ran towards Shinji screaming herself in excitement.

"Shinji!" Misato almost tackled him to the ground "you did it!"

The AE92 stopped and the Trio got out and ran towards him as well

"I don't know what magic you did Shinji! But you did it!" Toji shouted in excitement

Shinji felt inundated from everyone crushing him, especially Misato's bear hug. Everyone calmed down as Keiichi approached the gang and cleared way for him to confront Shinji.

"You've done well today" Keiichi spoke "remember that, and learn from it"

He turned around and walked off towards his car and got in. Shinji looked at the Maroon R32 as it backed out and started making his way up the hill. For the second time in his life, Shinji was genuinely complimented by someone; the first time was his father, and now from Keiichi. But somehow, the words in what he said were more meaningful

'Remember that and learn from it' Shinji repeated in his mind, he was right; he had a lot of learning to do. He walked back to the Trueno and pulled the video camera off from the dash board.

"Kenesuke-san" Shinji handed his video camera back "can you please give a copy of this when you can?"

"Sure…" Kenesuke was left for words, realizing the value of the tape he had in his hand.

"Misato-san" Shinji turned to his guardian "let's go home"

"Sure thing Shinji-kun"

Misato-san got into the passenger side of the Trueno and left his friends almost speechless for words. Toji and Kazuma didn't know why Kenesuke was mothering his video camera all of a sudden. Shinji turned out of the parking lot and left Mt Kira moved by his presence.

Location: Katsuragi Tofu Shop, Karasuyama-2

Time: 22:16hrs

Date: September 16th, 2017

Shinji quietly drove the black Trueno back into its regular parking space beside the tofu shop and got out of the car. Misato was still hyped up about whole race and couldn't wait to see the video that Shinji mentioned. Shinji felt the tire on his body as he walked towards the door; he had six hours before he had to go do the morning delivery run. They walked into the upstairs section. Shinji somehow felt drained of energy all of a sudden, he expected that was because his adrenalin made him this exhausted.

"I'll head to bed now" Shinji said as he turned around and headed to bed.

Misato agreed with him and started walking towards her own bedroom. She though for a moment and turned around, but Shinji had already closed the door. Misato walked by the dinning room and spotted out of the corner of her eye a picture frame left face down.

"Shinji-kun, can I come in?"

"Sure" Shinji replied,

"I'll do the morning delivery, you've had one busy night already" Misato spoke before pulling out the picture frame behind her back "and you forgot this…thought you might want it"

Shinji looked at the picture and put it down on his bedside table. "Thank you"

Misato walked off and closed the door behind her, leaving Shinji to fall asleep at last. She felt quite lighter inside, maybe it was her feelings after tonight after she saw Shinji having fun, it was had to tell, but inside her body; she felt happy. On her way by the living room, the telephone rang. Misato decided to take it in her room's phone instead of having Shinji hear her speaking.

"Hello, Katsuragi Tofu Shop…" Misato's tone dropped when she heard the other voice "oh hello…doctor"


	6. Episode 05: Enter Rei

After Evangelion

Episode 5: Enter Rei

Shinji didn't know what was concerning Misato all day today. After that late night phone call, all she could do was panic and grit her teeth. Who was she waiting for, what was happening? The only people Shinji knew that called Misato were any three of the bridge bunnies; Shigeru Aoba, Maya Ibuki and Makoto Hyuga. But they were working over in the next prefecture. Shinji didn't feel like asking her either.

In the most likely scenario that Shinji could think of, one of them had been in an accident; as negative as that seemed Shinji had to assume the worst case scenario. Despite the fact that Shinji was promised the morning off from driving, he still did it when he saw the face of Misato that morning. Something was definitely wrong with her; she wasn't sad, but more like a confused form of angry.

Shinji decided he'd try get off from work early again and help Misato out, at the same time talk to her and try reliving her stress. For now however, Shinji was bored, back in the mecha gamers store, the only difference for them usual day being Kenesuke, Hikari and Kazuma excited and asking him questions. Shinji though about it for a moment and understood their reasons for questioning him.

"Shinji" Kenesuke spoke, handing him a copy of the CD "this is the copy of the race video, you asked for. Its fantastic, the noise is kind of muffled, but its excellent quality video"

"I don't get it, you said to us all these years you didn't know how to drive, and then last night you drove like a professional" Kazuma replied next "Why did you keep it a secret?"

He'd completely fooled them in believing he didn't do anything for the tofu shop.

"Shinji, why did you face those people, haven't you got any respect for yourself?!" Hikari complained "what would have happened if you crashed?"

Shinji looked at Hikari, who had a very disapproving look on her face. This didn't come as a surprise as Hikari had previously praised him for staying out of that sort of stuff. It would take time before their relationship would heal.

"It wasn't something I wanted to do Kazuma, Misato-san made me do that race last night"

"Then how did you learn how to drift?" Kazuma "its not like a video game Shinji, it takes more then luck"

"As I said last night, Misato makes me deliver tofu in the morning and now at night time" Shinji explained "because of her 'style' of driving was known to damage the tofu, I had to learn otherwise all the deliveries would be destroyed"

"That makes sense" Kenesuke thought about it "otherwise, I was wondering how you still had contracts with those hotels like Misato mentioned"

Hikari had some what calmed down and appreciated the explanation that Shinji gave to answer. When she thought about it, it made both perfect senses to why he was always so sleepy. Given what Hikari saw of Shinji's home last Tuesday, she shouldn't complain about something as trivial as Shinji completing in illegal street races. He already had it bad enough working and living with Misato.

"So how was Misato this morning" Hikari asked in a more polite manner

"Quite weird actually" Shinji said honestly, no reason to lie now "ever since she got some phone call last night, she's been acting anxious or something. I haven't exactly been able to put my finger on it though"

Hikari and Kenesuke looked at Shinji worryingly; it wasn't something he worried about that much, but somehow Kenesuke and Hikari already knew what was wrong with her.

"Well Shinji-kun, it looks like your life might be having an unexpected corner"

"That's not even funny" Shinji harshly replied "I'm worried about her; she hasn't been like this since…since…"

"You and Misato were living in Tokyo-3?" Kenesuke guessed,

"Exactly" Shinji then came up with a frightening new scenario. Since Misato had a relativity high position in NERV before she left, maybe they decided she was the next suspect. No; why Misato? She wasn't like his father, he was the guilty suspect.

"Anyway you two" Kazuma started "I've got to go to work now"

"So do I, see you later" Hikari spoke as well.

Both of them walked out the door and down the street, leaving Kenesuke alone with Shinji, continuing to ask questions about that drift battle the previous night. Shinji thought about it for some time and decided that it couldn't be solved now. Shinji knew that for a fact that when he got home, Misato may have resolved the dilemma that she had and was back to her usual self; slack, lazy and half drunk.

"Hey Shinji, since we haven't got much to do" Kenesuke noting the absence of people on the store "lets watch that video on the big screen"

"What big screen?" Shinji was then directed to look at a 51 inch LCD screen behind them that showed the videos for the latest game titles "oh…no!"

"I'd like to see that video myself actually" spoke someone from behind them. Shinji turned around and saw a familiar face someone standing behind that familiar face.

"Aisaka-san, good afternoon" Shinji noticing the guy behind him "and you must be her older brother"

"That I am" he replied "I saw your race last night Ikari-san; that was quite a race"

'Everyone has been saying that' Shinji thought, but he didn't tell him that incase he was offended,

"My sister told me that the driver of the Black Trueno was also the same clerk working at this store" he continued "but it seems she was right about her guess"

Shinji and the person looked at each other for a moment, before Kenesuke interrupted.

"Shall I play the video, I've already loaded it"

"Sure" Shinji said defeated,

For the next fifteen minutes, they watched a pretty raw video of the passenger side point of view of the race. Shinji himself was concentrating on the race; he saw straight away that at the start his timing was all bad, he was only lucky that he managed to keep up. Later on, Shinji saw progressively his own cornering improve and sharpen around each corner. But inside he felt this wasn't right, now he knew what Keiichi meant.

To him; Shinji got lucky. The battle only became serious in the latter half. Along Mt Kira road, the pass was divided into two sections, which conveniently was divided be the T-intersection that lead to the third stop of his morning run. In the first half between there and the start line, it was relatively straight roads, and the corners didn't allow for Shinji to perform high speed corning. Instead, he relied on the latter half of the mountain to catch up as it was shorter straightway and more downhill and wider corners to perform faster drift speeds.

The video dictated this quite well, only after the halfway point and when these changes came into effect did Shinji manage to catch up and eventually overtake the white sileightly. The video ended with the black Trueno's victory pass the ending point; for some reason. He felt that the victory was hollow now, it was meaningless. The only thing it did though was moved Shinji to improve.

"Quite an impressive battle" the older brother said "I forgot to introduce myself, I'm Sousuke Okochiba"

"Shinji Ikari"

"And I'm Kenesuke Aida" Kenesuke added in,

"Anyway Shinji, I see your not familiar with the inner workings of cars"

"No, not really" Shinji replied "as I've told Kenesuke this morning, all I do is drive for the tofu shop, and I've only raced once, and that was last night…"

"I can see that" Sousuke replied "and Keiichi gave you advice?"

"Yea…and now I see what he meant"

"Do you know where you need to improve?"

"Yes, at the smaller corners, I need to learn better control"

"No, your control is one of the problems, it's your engine that is what's concerning"

"Huh?" Shinji didn't understand,

Sousuke made Kenesuke replay the tape at the first part of the race, and set the volume up to only focus on engine noises. The video played again, showing Shinji break out of the start line and his almost fatal first corner, for the first three corners they watched and listened at the Trueno's movements and engine noise. Shinji was shifting the engine when he needed the power, but the engine was stranging sometimes.

"Your 86's engine isn't tuned correctly, I hear it, and the settings are also stock standard are they?"

"Settings? Stock standard?"

"It means the standard setup for that the factory put on it" Sousuke explained, "The settings are how the gearbox is and engine is set. In most cases you don't need to mess with this, but I'd say in your case, you need to extend your second gear and third gear, you're constantly thrashing both of them when coming around the corners"

Shinji thought about that and Sousuke was right; when he went into corners, he couldn't stay in third gear for very long before the engine was complaining.

"If you want to get the full power out of the engine, you'll need to start learning how it works Ikari-kun" Sousuke continued

Beside Shinji, Kenesuke was also taking in this knowledge and was in a shocked surprise how right he was. Kenesuke was an amateur at mechanics, just like Shinji; so to him, Sousuke obviously knew what he was talking about. Sousuke continued note the rest of the tape until they finished,

"As I said Ikari-kun, you strength at the moment is wider corners" he concluded "the Trueno is know for its good handling, not its speed"

"Don't be mean" Aisaka interrupted "Shinji still won"

"I know that Aisaka-chan" he turned his attention towards Shinji again. He put a piece of paper on the counter and turned around to start walking out of the shop with his sister in trail.

"Call me if you have any questions, my shop's address is there too if you want to bring the 86 by for a tune up."

Shinji and Kenesuke were left stoked by the appearance of this person. Who would have though that the sweet girl their age was the younger sister to a drifter specialist mechanic. Kenesuke quickly returned the television back into its original condition. While Shinji was kept busy with people buying things. It was boring work, but it managed to make Shinji forget about the phone call.

"So Shinji" Kenesuke started

"Yea"

"Are you going to go to compete in another drift battle?"

"Not straight away" Shinji said "I know I've got some practicing to do"

"Practicing?" Kenesuke said "don't let that guy let you down, you're great!"

"No, Sousuke is right" Shinji thought about it "I won cause of something I did at the very end of the race, if I didn't know that trick, I would have lost the battle"

In the past; Shinji delivered the Tofu from the top hotel first and went to the bottom practicing his drift in four parts. The first half of the course required him to stop twice, and the latter half required him to stop once, at the end. Considering this, Shinji couldn't perform a full run on the first half of the course as he had to slow down as soon as he started. It was in the latter half Shinji had better practice in; he could go all out, and he wasn't carrying a stack of Tofu crates in the back of the car.

Now he understood why Misato made him swap the delivery route around. It was to practice the first half of the course instead, when he went down the mountain with her, he was initially bad at driving in the first part of the course. She knew where he had the problems driving; but why did Misato have good advice for him and herself still was a bad driver? Maybe it was the style of driving Shinji thought; Misato's reckless driving and Drifting seemed to seep from the same style.

"It's not something to worry about Shinji" Kenesuke said "you caught up in the second half right?"

"Yes" Shinji said "but both Sousuke and Keiichi are right, I'm not the best yet, I've only begun to understand"

* * *

Location: Katsuragi Tofu Shop, Karasuyama-2

Time: 18:05hrs

Date: September 17th, 2017

Like Shinji promised himself, he managed to convince Kenesuke to close the shop up for him again. Shinji kept thinking about the video and the drift battle again. Shinji was already having a hard thinking about how he'd missed those critical factors until it was pointed it out to him. Shinji was truly showing his absence of knowledge; he had some research to do now.

He wondered how much Misato knew as well, so far; Misato had managed to quietly convince Shinji into a better training mode. He'd completely forgotten about the fact that Misato was feeling weird; instead he was ready to ask her about more tactics she knew of before it hit him. What if Misato knew how to drive herself? No, while it made sense in one way, it didn't cover her poor driving skills.

Shinji walked into the back door of the tofu store, noticing already that Misato had already closed up the shop and gone back upstairs for the day. Shinji opened the door to notice the appearance that he had not anticipated. Inside the back storage room and the kitchen section of the tofu shop was cleaned up, the usually stick floor and the crates that Shinji had taken back with him on his evening runs were all neatly stacked. Shinji felt like he walked into the wrong building when he saw the store section of the store.

The entire room had been cleaned up. The windows wiped and clear as crystal, it was like everything was brand new. Shinji was definitely wondering if this was his home now; Misato hadn't run of scared from this morning and sold it some old man that smoked, did she? Shinji decided to brave it and head upstairs himself, if Misato had really run off, he'd know by the condition of the home.

Shinji walked up the stairs of the building and into a small section they called 'home'; but somehow despite how much Shinji was use to it, he was surprised by this. The entire upstairs section was exactly how he left it. 'This is bad sign' Shinji though, the lights were on and penpen was watching women's boxing, but there were no beer cans or smell of burnt ramen lunches from the kitchen.

"Misato" Shinji braved his voice "I'm home"

"Welcome back Shinji" Misato popped her head out from her room "I'll be with you in a second"

Shinji took a closer inspection of the house, the kitchen looked used, but it was still clean and there no messes on the bench left for him to clean. Shinji went by the table and noticed among a bunch of things a receipt from a furniture store; a receipt for a futon. Was someone staying over, and was this why she kept the place clean? Maybe she was finally considering the remote chance that some would stay at their place.

'Maybe Misato-san is finally learning how to take care of herself' Shinji thought and nodded in agreement and walked down to his room and dropped off his bag. His room didn't look any different from normal. The pictures were there, his unused laptop, his school uniform hanging from a solitary coat hanger on his wall hook. No, everything was just the way he left it. He put down his bag and walked out of the room to talk to Misato.

"Misato" Shinji said "I have the video tape of the drift battle"

Misato looked differently slightly, she was dressed in causal day outfit for downstairs, but she looked like she had gotten out of the shower, and one surprising factor was she was sober, at 6pm at night!

"You didn't drink all day?"

"Not one can" Misato replied

"It doesn't sound like it" Shinji replied with sarcasm,

"Fine, two, but only this morning" Misato surrendered "I've had a lot on my mind today"

"I won't doubt that, are you sure you're not getting your healthy intake?"

"Oh?" Misato replied as she sat on the couch "So where is this video tape?"

"Right here"

Shinji put the DVD that he was given by Kenesuke and started watching it, disappointing penpen who was enjoying the boxing more then this weird video that appeared on the screen. Shinji sat down and joined his 'family' and started watching the drift battle. Shinji was already bored watching his performance twice already, he saw all the mistakes he made and felt really bad about them.

He looked at Misato; she somehow was enticed by this video. She must've known if Shinji was doing pretty badly in her own judgment because she was frowning at his first few turns and slowly started smiling as Shinji started catching up and his pace started picking up when he entered the second half of the course,

Shinji had already been told by one field professional where had gone wrong, he didn't want to here it from Shinji's own guardian. Misato smiled more approvingly as the race neared its conclusion and penpen started leaning left and right respective the direction the car was drifting. He knew the penguin had approval of this race, but what of Misato; her opinion was edging on Shinji's own decision to keep practicing on towards the next race.

The DVD ended, with Shinji's hand covering the lens and turning it off. He looked over at Misato, he felt both surprised and confused that she didn't reacted yet. Penpen was confused, and gave up decided, seeking the fridge for beer.

"Well?" Shinji broke the silence "how bad am I?"

"Not bad…your start was a little bad, but whatever you did at the end, you did it well"

Misato referred to the two hairpin turns towards the end where Shinji applied his only trick in the book. Shinji explained briefly the technique to his best cardinal knowledge what he was doing with the wheel and the accelerator. Misato heard him out before deciding herself what it was he was doing.

"So like that time I was in the car" Misato replied "you hooked the left or right side ties to the inner gutter"

"That's about as best description I can come up with" Shinji responded "if that's what I'm doing, it sounds like it though"

Misato patted her adopted son on the back, "good work Shinji-kun"

Shinji felt some relief, Misato approved of what she saw; maybe it was because it was his first battle that she forgiving. Before Shinji and Misato could talk anymore, the sound of another sports car revving its engine sounded from down the street. Suddenly Misato froze; getting up from her seat on the couch. She heard its engine calm down and getting closer.

It was a the sound of a well tuned rotary engine, under the hood, with the aid of a turbo charger, it grossed out 200 hp, compared to the Black Trueno's 140 hp, it was in a class of its own; The white car Mazda RX-7 stopped itself outside the closed Tufo shop. Shinji walked to his window to look down on who this mysterious visitor was. Shinji managed to get a good look at the car. It was white, with the exception of a light blue stripe painted on that went down the center of the car. Misato looked out of the window as well, silently surprising Shinji.

"Come in Shinji-kun" Misato whispered quietly "it's not a road racer, it's an old friend of ours"

Shinji closed the window and headed in before he could see who was inside the car. Misato and Shinji walked silently down stairs and out the backdoor of the building. Shinji was worried about this, were these agents from the UN wanting to arrest them or something? If so why such a flashy car? Inside, Misato knew who it was driving and silently cursed her for being such a show off. Shinji and Misato walked outside and say someone they didn't expect to see ever again, not since Misato swore that oath two years ago.

"Dr. Akagi-san!?" Shinji spoke in surprise,

"Quiet Shinji-kun" Misato stepped out in front of him "okay Ritsuko-san, why did you come out here secretly"

"Before you ask me anything else, I want you to see why I'm here"

Shinji and Misato looked at each other and decided to follow the former NERV doctor to the car she was driving. Again Misato was thinking at what she had in her car and why she had a better car then her. Shinji looked into the passenger side seat and saw to his own grief someone he thought was dead. Inside and wrapped warmly in a blanket, sleeping was Rei Ayanami.

"Rei?!" Misato and Shinji both gasped in deep shock

With that silent gasp, Rei opened her eyes in surprise; she blinked her red eyes a few times before relapsing to herself where she had ended up. Ritsuko tapped on the glass and made her noticed herself and the two people standing next to her.

'Major Katsuragi…' Rei's eyes focused on the young male standing next to her. Rei's mind froze when she finally recognized the person that he was '….Ikari'

Ritsuko opened the door as Rei finally stopped leaning on it and woke up fully. She stood up for the first time, and looked at the two now strangers standing in front of her. Ritsuko sighed as Rei continued her slow analysis of the situation.

"If you let us inside, I'll explain why she is with me"

With that, Shinji was directed by Misato to take Ritsuko and Rei's things and took them upstairs into the living room. There was not much there; only a few suitcases and a rug sack. Shinji now understood, somehow her concern and grief that Misato had been suffering all day. It wasn't an accident or anything he could imagine; instead it was something of a far more disturbing scale then whatever Shinji could imagine.

Once they all walked upstairs; Ritsuko started training her eyes on the surroundings of her friend's home. It wasn't anything like she expected, then again it was probably thanks to Shinji and his almost impossible task of taking care of Misato. Over in the living room; penpen was watching the video that Misato and Shinji were quietly examining earlier. It did take Ritsuko's attention off guard, as to what that warm she supposedly would get an answer from Misato soon enough

"This is quite an establishment you have created for yourself Misato" Ritsuko nodded approvingly "now how much of it was thanks to Shinji?"

"Ritsuko…if you don't like my house, don't stay here" Misato replied in a monotone "besides, you didn't tell me that you had someone else coming with you, I bought one futon so you could sleep here, now what will I do, Shinji has work and school in the morning, I cant ask him too…"

"Don't worry about me Misato-san" Shinji put the baggage down the corner of the living room leading to Shinji's room "Rei can use my bed; I can sleep on the sofa for now"

Misato sighed at Shinji's defeating generosity, given that Shinji had work in the morning he didn't have time to just give up his bed to someone else.

"Very well" Rei nodded as she stood there as she remained transfixed at the television screen.

"Shinji-kun?" Misato asked

"Yes"

"Can you get Rei setup for bed and prepare the futon for Ritsuko in my room"

"Okay Misato-san" Shinji complied,

"Rei's things are in the duffel bag" Ritsuko pointed to the green bag that was lying beside the suitcases

Shinji picked up the simple backpack and walked off a short distance to his rooms; in the meantime, Ritsuko and Misato took a seat at the table while Rei was sitting down on the sofa watching the video that penpen was leaning in time with the movements again. Ritsuko managed to make sense of the video finally 'Drift racing? Is Misato doing that now?'

"I see Shinji-san is still your slave" Ritsuko first started, "he cleans, he cooks, I hope he doesn't have to clean you nowadays

"I'm not a baby Ritsuko-san" Misato replied with utter disgust.

"Could've fooled me" the doctor laughed,

"Well?"

"Well what?"

"Why are you here, and why do you have Rei?"

"You don't like to mince words anymore, do you?" Ritsuko replied,

"You would say the same if some old friend suddenly popped up after two years, even after you told that friend never to see you again, and had someone who I last remember was Gendo's adopted daughter!"

Ritsuko sat back in the chair, she honestly though that Misato was getting too old for this style of blaming; but she couldn't blame her. Misato did offer them a place to stay, it was only fair she explained.

"Well, given the fact that Gendo's behind bars; I highly doubt that he would have Rei by his side anymore" Ritsuko started explaining "when NERV was under investigation, he had Rei reclassified from a human being to a test animal"

"Test animal!?" Misato looked over at Rei who obviously looked like a 17 year old girl, she had grown rather boundlessly in her two year absence, her blue hair was longer then the short trim she had it kept when she was piloting, and her body had grown up a fair bit since.

"Well anyway, after he did that, he was able to remove her from custody and sell Rei off to Tokyo-2's biology and human mind research centre"

"The slaughter house of labs" Misato sighed,

Misato had heard of the laboratory; during her commission as head of the Evangelion operations in NERV; she had learn of this place, inside that used anything from rats to people to test out various previously deemed immoral experiments. Most people went insane after some of the tests, while a handful died from various demises. From a hyperactive and steroids enhanced flu to testing how long the body could survive with a knife in the back.

Shinji hadn't heard of the laboratories, and for as far as he was concerned, Ritsuko was the most evil scientist on the block. But compared to the people that worked here, Ritsuko was a saint. So when Misato learnt the name, even she wondered why Ritsuko was involved with them.

"Hang on, last time I remember, I set you up with a hospital job in one of the Nagoya's"

"The laboratory tracked me down and asked me if I wanted a job" Ritsuko "they connected with me into it, saying it was easier then what was doing then"

Misato nodded knowing that Ritsuko had fallen for her own weakness. No matter how much she denied it, Ritsuko was like her mother, they both wanted fame and wealth.

"Anyway, I started working for their lab last year, it was then around the same time NERV was brought under investigation. So one Apirl day, we got a delivery from Tokyo-3…"

"Rei" Misato guessed

"Yes, as well as the dead body of her previous counterpart"

"Hang on, someone kept that body?!" Misato slammed her hand on the table "what the hell?"

"To answer your question, I did" Ritsuko answered, "originally we had the bodies of both the first and second Rei; but Gendo had me cremate the first body, for sentimental reasons"

Misato was quirked at how calmly Ritsuko was talking about this with Rei sitting on the sofa behind them. Ritsuko then continued to tell Misato the story around Rei. Initially Rei was both confused and constantly asking for Gendo to tell him what was going on. After some time, this stopped and Ritsuko was assigned her for her experiments. The former NERV doctor decided to continue her research into LCL and figure out how to recover people whose souls were stuck inside it.

So far, Ritsuko had managed to successfully managed to bring back one person from the dead; Shinji. But when he debriefed with the doctors, she learnt that Yui was still alive, and quite possible able to be brought back to life. But she needed practice of her own to figure out how to perform such a trick maneuver. So far; her only theory included bringing someone in to sync with the Eva at 100 for more then a minute. It was then she realized that it was now impossible, Shinji was the only person that could come that close to syncing with the unit, Rei couldn't and Asuka at the end certainly couldn't.

Even so, Ritsuko wasn't working for NERV anymore, after destroying the dummy plug system, Gendo was looking for her to payback revenge. So Ritsuko remained hidden among the crowds of Tokyo-2 until her former commander was stripped of power. She then started to continue her proper work on syncing with a system Ritsuko created to simulate an Evangelion's plug. Then there was the obvious question of asking for access to the Magi super computers, and Eva unit 01, not easy tasks considering that she was considered dead officially.

Even so, Ritsuko would then have to convince Shinji to get into the Evangelion; an impossible task now that he was out of NERV and Misato promised him that he'd never to have to get into the Eva again. Then there were the factors that Ritsuko couldn't think of, even if they could, do they use the LCL that usually fills the Eva tube, or did they need the exact same contents that Yui entered in?

Either way, it would be impossible; they'd never get to do it, Ritsuko would have to buy the Evangelion out her own pocket before being allowed to do that, and that was something that she couldn't dream of doing so. Instead and until then; Ritsuko had to prefect, through simulations and further study of Rei's body a rescue technique that could override the entry plug's own personal agenda and retrieve the soul of the occupant without any problems.

As Ritsuko continued her research and learnt of her former bosses demise, she began to work well in creating several working emulations on a computer system she dubbed Magi Jr.; which was basically a half size and half powered model of the original models. She was limited in that the older Magi had all the data on the system and when the original Magi was sold off, the companies that bought them wiped the hard drives clean of any data.

Despite her setbacks, it only encouraged herself to revenge. All around the Tokyo-2 labs; the other scientists were starting to get annoyed at Dr. Akagi's pace of work, as well as her kind of work. Tokyo-2 lab wasn't infamous for only its experiments; it was famous for the staff. Most of these scientists were morally incorrect and for the most part were incapable of being proper doctors. Most of the experiments we're obscene or pointless; sometimes proving a scientific fact that was common sense for thousands of years.

Ritsuko quietly worked away in her own work; resolving issues with her studies and firing people that she deemed unqualified for any job in this line of work. Eventually the head of the agency gained a new boss; Kozo Fuyutsuki, whom upon recognizing Ritsuko from her previous 'work' in hospitals; was give more access to materials, an a private wing of the facilities. Many other scientists whom were doing an experiment a month got annoyed at the new director and planned to expose them for who they really were.

But what did these people know about Ritsuko or Kozo? They managed to maintain their own past as a secret as a blacked out document. There was no connection of them working in the past. Kozo had decided to quit Gendo's side not long after the end of the Evangelion attacks, deciding and quite successfully convincing Gendo to let him return to teaching at Kyoto University. Gendo made a fake background for his former professor and thanked him for his advice.

If truth be told about his departure; Kozo knew that Gendo and SEELE were about to sink, and he decided that it was time to jump ship. He had been on nerve ever since agreeing to work for the former student, whom belonged to the group responsible for second impact. He had been waiting and waiting, seeing the man marry and then kill a promising student from his former profession. Kozo had enough of the antics when Gendo started implying that children were going to pilot the Evangelions, then he found out about the truth regarding Rei. Then during the angel attacks when Gendo threw everything, even his own son into battle.

He had enough; it was only a matter of when and how. Kozo decided to remain loyal to Gendo until the last angel was slaughtered, which thankfully occurred with his morality intact. Upon his return to teaching, Kozo started to work himself into a decent life, decent that he started getting recognized again as a famous professor.

A short year later, Kozo was offered the position of director in charge the Tokyo-2 biology and human mind research centre; initially he didn't want to take the position, as he had heard of the lab and its infamous history. But his mind was changed when he first became aware of Ritsuko and her project called 'LCL human recovery'

According to the paper Ritsuko had formally published; she was developing a technique that would require no surgery and if proven, could rebuild a dying body from near death a regenerate a body that was in full health. The implications of the idea were remained secret, and many other scientists felt that this was a controversial as some of the things NERV were known to have done.

Kozo, learning the true intentions of the experiments, approved for more funding and investigations in loaning or buying the Evangelion units; when the time came when they could recover the souls of the two lost souls. The relationship worked well with Kozo and Ritsuko, but it was unsettling for everyone else. The new director was stricter and more morally focused on approving only experiments that would benefit humanity; not things that required little thought.

During her time researching; Ritsuko became more aware of Rei as a person. Despite her obviously short sighted upbringing, by the director of NERV himself; Rei started to understand her conscious mind again, her understanding of her feelings and memories made her ask Ritsuko more about her own past. Ritsuko couldn't think of a way to tell Rei that she had literally only existed for as long as she remembered; that she was a clone of someone who had died, and was also the third person cloned.

The only way Ritsuko could show Rei; was to show Rei. The second clone was kept intact after the angel attack that clamed her short life. It shocked her and made her understand who she was alright, to a point that made Ritsuko regret showing her that. She later told Rei that her former clone's body could be resurrected if their research was successful. A lie, but it was something Ritsuko wished she could.

At the guilt she felt for her treatment in the past, to that end; Ritsuko practically took Rei in as her own daughter. The move made scientists see it as a dangerous move for her to get close to an 'animal'. Ritsuko ignored the comments and harassment and was protected by Kozo. She continued her work and worked again closely with Rei in teaching her to become a young woman.

Six months later; Ritsuko had completed a primary model of something that would later be called the Genesis Plug. It fit to the same specifications that aligned that of an Evangelion Entry plug; but there certain features in it. The first one being that it was two seated instead of one seated. Ritsuko concluded that Shinji and Rei, being the two highest sync ratios at the end of the angel battles; could and would have to combine their Sync together to obtain what she determined was the borderline Sync ratio required to become LCL, 188.

The second feature was if in the probably that the extra soul needed space to not interfere with the pilots coming back, the Entry plug would then establish a sealed partition ahead of the pilot seats. The third and final feature were the inbuilt transmitters; if by remote chance they needed to have the sprit talk to the outside, Ritsuko hoped that this microphone would be the answer.

It was a risky plan considering, but the project deemed worth enough to start laying down her actual experiment. Ritsuko's dream was now becoming a reality; all she had to do was ask Kozo to start arranging with UNFC, a replacement organization to NERV; loan of the two Evangelion units and something similar to the magi or more powerful. Despite how good her plan was going, it all had to fail at some point.

The scientists had discovered a small leak regarding the disappearance of a Dr. Ritsuko Akagi some two years ago. They were tired of being thrown around to do real work; and demanded for someone higher then Kozo to end his reign of control over the complex. Eventually, the university of Tokyo-2 agreed to buy the labs and thus control over the director. Immediately they wanted to know what this secret project that Ritsuko was working; naturally Ritsuko complied to give the university a fake documentation that outlined her research.

Only this time; the university didn't approve of the experiment; it wasn't the factor of human life being on th line, it was the factor of the budget, Ritsuko had spent almost a billion yen building the Genesis plug. A device that if working; would then cost another quarter of a billion yen to make it effective; they also didn't see how the Evangelions were required. It only left Ritsuko no choice but tell them the truth.

Ritsuko introduced the Genesis plug to them; while it was possible to do what she said in her fake report, its primary design was for something more personal then saving lives. The board of directors negated the plan and immediately cut the funding to her project. They also decided that Rei was no longer required for the experiment and should be killed. Kozo was furious and stood by Ritsuko; demanding that the experiment had other profound effects.

Despite all the arguments; the project was then put on hold, and Ritsuko told to continue on simpler and less morally disturbing experiments. It was then that Ritsuko had had it; she tried and tried, only when her hard work was coming to fruition did she get the plug pulled. She gave up trying to act responsibly, she now knew what this laboratory did, it wasn't a laboratory for the best scientists of the decade; it was a playpen for the drop out students of morality. She wanted her revenge.

This Revenge came in the form of her biggest sacrifice since the loosing her mother's greatest invention; the magi, to a bunch of game developers. Ritsuko felt that the entire complex should be destroyed, of course she knew of a way to do it, but it required perfect planning and an escape plan.

The first hard thing she had to do was inform Rei that her former self would have to act as a sacrifice to air them in their escape. Rei at first was hesitant and demanded that Ritsuko find another way; then the former NERV doctor told her a small painful truth that even if they did save her, not even the Genesis Plug could revive her. By leaving the body behind, the scientists would assume that Rei was killed, and she wouldn't be hunted for.

Ritsuko informed Kozo of her plan and started arranging things for her, he bought her a new car; a White and Blue Mazda RX-7; a fast car to use as their escape from Tokyo-2, as well as the address of Misato. Ritsuko then downloaded and saved all the data from her research, demanding that she would one day return and finish her job. Once that was done Ritsuko was ready to say goodbye to her dream project; the Genesis Plug.

That Thursday night; a fire broke out in the wing of the laboratory that housed the Genesis plug and Rei's home. Ritsuko was reported to be working on her experiment for two weeks without funding and acting like slightly crazy. The other staff remained distance as per usual, not knowing what she was really planning. Then this; Ritsuko came screaming out of the wing of the Laboratory saying her Genesis Plug overloaded and was about to blow up,

Ritsuko was desperate to save Rei whom was supposable trapped in the Genesis Plug on an experimental test of the system. But surely as she feared, the Genesis plug exploded and took half the lab with it. Eventually the fire was put out and the damage was extensive. Firefighters found and confirmed the death of Rei when her body was found in the rubble of the Genesis plug, practically incinerated. Ritsuko was notable in her finest acting when she was raging her abuse on how she was irresponsible and cost the life of her only daughter.

The next day, Ritsuko formally requested to resign from the laboratory and return to medical practice. Kozo gracefully gave her permission and helped see her off. In reality, the living Rei had been hiding out at Kozo's residence for almost a week before the fire. Ritsuko had placed the dead corpse of Rei II in the Genesis plug and let it explode with her inside it. With a body to prove that she died, Rei was finally free from being an animal.

Ritsuko then packed her bags and left Tokyo-2 driving the White and Blue FC; Kozo promised to meet up again, and help her succeed in her plan. He had already done enough, helping Ritsuko escape the pressure of the laboratory. But his belief was that Rei deserved to live; Ritsuko had done that. He suggested that she wait till they were on the road before calling Misato. For a day straight, Ritsuko and Rei traveled all over the countryside in their car, first to Kyoto-2, then Osaka-2. it was then Ritsuko realized that she was going the wrong way to see Misato.

After some quick research, the former scientist found in the phone book in the Osaka-2 main public library a place called the Katsuragi Tofu Shop in Karasuyama-2, Tochigi Prefecture. It seems that even Kozo didn't know where Misato and Shinji disappeared too, that and he probably was trying to get Ritsuko to take the scenic route to Misato.

After this correction, they spent all day Saturday driving up along coastal roads, avoid the major cities were possible. The fact was, she couldn't be seen in Tokyo-2 or Tokyo-3; both places were the homes of her former enemies. In this time Rei was continually in the passenger seat, wondering where life would go now she was supposedly dead. Ritsuko had similar beliefs, what were they going to do now that they were on the run?

Ritsuko stopped into old Tokyo. From there, she started trying to get into contact with Misato, with only fail. Only getting the answering machine; it at least confirmed their intentions that Misato was indeed alive and well. All they had to do now was contact her. Almost when Ritsuko was about to give up and try look for Maya, Misato finally picked up the phone.

"…and after that we came here" Ritsuko concluded her long story

Misato and Shinji had listened to the entire story for over two hours; Rei still aware of them talking about her had since joined them at the table. Misato was left both shocked and confused, she had no idea how to tackle this situation, nothing she knew helped her now; she was just a lowly tofu shop owner now, not an officer in NERV. Misato felt grief and despair when she learnt of Rei's situation.

"Well, for now you and Rei can stay here" Misato gave in "ill buy Rei a separate futon tomorrow and clear out a room for her. But three conditions however"

"Which are?"

"One; you will be helping me and Shinji with the tofu shop"

"I suppose so" Ritsuko sighing

It was only fair that they worked for their shelter.

"Two; you will start looking for a place of your own as well as a job as soon as possible"

"That I can agree too" Ritsuko nodding

"Last; you will not question the benefits of Shinji's hobbies, or mine for that matter"

"Hobby?" Ritsuko asked "what do you do? Drug sniffing?"

"No!" Misato replied angrily "you'll find out in due time"

"I suppose that's fair enough"

Shinji nodded in approval of the plan that Misato was setting out, not that she knew how they could help the store and he was now driving full time to keep up with his practice. Maybe it was so that Misato could go out of the store more often, or even more so, run the store during drift battles.

"Shinji-kun can you get us a cup of tea" Misato asked him

"Sure, how do you like it?" Shinji asked Ritsuko,

"Little pour of milk, no sugar" she replied

"Okay and Rei?" Shinji knew this was vain,

"the same, expect one teaspoon of sugar"

Shinji and Misato looked at Rei in surprise; she replied normally? Ritsuko must've taught her to say that or something because it wasn't normal for Rei to make such requests. Shinji complied and went to the kitchen. He looked up at the clock, it was just past nine thirty; he had to sleep soon if he was going to get up and do the morning delivery. Misato knew of the time as well and decided to try and make this as quickly as possible. She wanted to get some sleep.

"So how is Shinji?" Ritsuko asked "he doesn't look as pessimistic as before"

"I think the simple life has done him well" Misato replied "but it has made him boring in some ways"

"Back" Shinji said ash he held three glasses of tea. Everyone finished their cups and agreed it was time to go to bed. Shinji had already moved Ritsuko's things to Misato's room. The only bag he didn't move was a crate like suitcase that she said didn't need moving.

"Well, Shinji-kun" Misato said as she walked into her room with the doctor "are you sure you don't want my bed or something

"No, it's alright, you need to be awake tomorrow for work" Shinji replied,

"Rei" Ritsuko spoke "you can go to Shinji's room tonight to sleep; he has given you the bed"

"Okay"

Rei walked off into the room that Shinji. Rei walked into the room and proceeded to the bed. She proceeded with undressing for bed in a crude style; having not learnt the traits that calm with being a girl, her clothes were unceremoniously dumped on the floor. She walked to bed and got in, it was odd. For the previous two nights, she slept in the car seat, and for two years previous to that, she slept on a dirty old futon Ritsuko had given her.

"This bed is clean" Rei said to herself and turned her head over to be affronted by a photograph on Shinji's bedside table. It was the same picture that Shinji loved, that had everyone around Misato's old car. Shinji, Asuka, Misato, Ritsuko and she were all there in the one picture.

"Ritsuko-san said that is my family" Rei spoke before slipping into a deep sleep.

Outside the room the lights were out and the penguin was back in his fridge. Misato gave Shinji a pillow, which was just old clothes stuffed in a pillow sheet. It was only for one night, Shinji admitted. He struggled to sleep on the couch, knowing he had a delivery to do in the morning. It was uncomfortable no matter how he looked at it. But it was his own guilt that made him let Rei have his bed.

"I don't live right" Shinji moaned.


	7. Episode 06: Living Adjustments

After Evangelion

Episode 6: Living Adjustments

It was early morning, Shinji was on the couch, as a result of his surrendering of his bed to Rei when herself and the Former Doctor NERV Doctor, Risiko suddenly showed up into his and Misato's life again. Shinji was finding hard too sleep on the couch, both because it was uncomfortable, and he was deep inside a dream that was haunting his inner mind and soul. She hated dreams like this, for over a year he didn't have one like this. But in the blink of an eye of seeing Rei and Dr Ritsuko, his memories of his past came gushing backing into his mind.

He opened his eyes again, for a moment, he though he was awake, in his apartment, but he wasn't. Shinji saw the white ceiling white fluorescent light above him; he looked down at himself and found himself wearing some sort of rubber outfit….or rather a plug suit. Shinji worried what happened, was he dreaming? He could tell the difference, but it was sometimes hard to tell; he looked over to his left; Rei was there wearing her trademark white plug suit with the digits 00 written on the upper part of the chest. Shinji panicked and looked on his right. To his resounding shock or horror, there was Asuka and even Toji.

'No...Not again! Not this dream!' Shinji gulped; he had remembered this dream. He knew every part of it right down to the screaming and the bloodshed. In any moment, a monster black figure that was the representation of his father would order to go into their Evangelions; Rei would move much like a wind up doll and walk into her Evangelion regardless. Asuka and Shinji were literally pushed; Toji walked and stumbled to the floor, forgetting his missing limbs. Then once they got into the entry plugs, all they heard were the screams; their own and those of everyone that died as a result of their failures.

They replayed everything they did almost, in ultra fast forward, all the blood and the screaming that came from their doing. Shinji's mind kept racing around it trying to think of something he liked, anything that would erase that mental image from his mind. Then he remembered; his drift battle with Takashi. He then found himself driving his black Trueno, driving down Mt Kira road at full bore. But it didn't help, everyone in crowd suddenly morphed and became his father, and they all said the same thing

'Stop playing like a child and get back in the Evangelion'

'No!' Shinji yelled back

'It's insignificant no matter what you do'

'That's not true! People cheered when I won'

'You got lucky and you know it'

'That was my first race and I still won!'

'You were lucky' his father's voice beckoned 'now stop acting like a child!'

'I'm not a child!' Shinji yelled at his father as he drove away towards the finish line 'and I won't run away ever!!'

Shinji opened his eyes; he was sweating all over his body. It wasn't partially hot or anything, so why? Shinji took a good minute to clam down, he continued to stare upwards. It was a familiar ceiling;

'I'm awake…' Shinji thought. Shinji had once slept on the couch when his guardian was too boozed up and heavy to move. That time; Shinji was pinned as Misato used him as a body pillow, this time he felt pinned again. He felt upwards, no, nobody was on him. It was own imagination; Shinji sighed. He continued to look upwards; it must've been one hell of a nightmare to scare Shinji this much.

He then wondered what time it was, he looked over at the clock, in the darkness of the wall, the hands appeared to show just after a quarter past two in the morning. Great he had another hour before he got up for work. He lay down and looked up, and then he felt the presence of a stiff tension in the air. Before he decided to fall asleep again, Rei popped her head into the view of Shinji's upward stare. Shinji almost screamed as he turned to his side overboard from his couch and crashing onto the floor,

"Rei!!!" he gasped as he came to and got up but only to fall back onto the couch when he saw that Rei was half naked. Again, lacking the decency and knowledge to understand how her appearance affects Shinji's sense of security and sanity.

"Rei!!! Please…put some clothes on!!!" Shinji panicked as Rei continued to follow him, despite the fact she was unaware of why Shinji was in this state of shock,

"Shinji…your alarm clock went off just three minutes ago" Rei said while she leaned over in what people would argue as a seductive pose

"Thank you…now please Rei…put some clothes on!!"

"I don't understand" Rei replied "I'm going to bed now to complete the eight hours required of sleep"

"You do that…" Shinji spoke as he saw Rei walk off to his room again and close the door. 2 clicks later, Shinji assumed she killed his alarm clock. Shinji got up and looked at the clock again, if it had only buzzed a few minutes ago, it meant that it was,

'3:50' Shinji sighed as he put his pants from the previous day on "I suppose I better wake up Misato-san"

Shinji once dressed then started his clockwork routine that he could manage to do with a blindfold almost. He started by going to the kitchen and turned the lights on and started the coffee machine, he then prepared two mugs, one for himself and Misato. Once while the water boiled and drained itself in the coffee pot, Shinji then braved himself and walked down the hall and towards Misato's room. Acknowledging today that Ritsuko was in the room as well, he had to enter the room and wake her up.

Shinji braced for the worse, only to see something that he not only was shocked about but was confused. Ever since they met, Shinji knew Misato's habits well; and her room was the Mecca of her lively ability to maintain a pigsty. Even in her sleep, Misato slept in bad positions comprising her posture, sometimes Shinji had to manually move her so she didn't snap her own neck in her sleep. But despite all the experience he had, nothing prepared him for this.

Misato was in bed, sleeping quite normally, not her normal behavior to sleep on her side in bed with the sheets still tucked in the same way she went to bed with them in. Ritsuko on the other hand looked like she had partied hard the night before and slept with the sheet barely covering her body. Shinji gulped at how similar Ritsuko's psychical form was to Misato, of course there were obvious differences, and Misato was thin and fit, as a result of living with Shinji and maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

Ritsuko exposed her bared her small scientist gut that she gained from being stuck behind a desk all day and eating god knows how many snacks during all-nighters in the laboratory in Tokyo-2. She no doubt will be the butt end of jokes from Misato today when she notices the doctor's bulge. Shinji carefully tiptoed around Ritsuko's strewn body and started waking up Misato with a sentence; it was a risky job, but he was use to it. He whispered a small sentence into her ear; suddenly she was wide awake,

"I am not!" Misato opened her eyes and ended her sleeping; she looked up and was welcomed by Shinji's face to her left.

"Good morning" Shinji smiled "Dr Akagi-san is still asleep, so I don't want to wake her up"

"What?" Misato said louder "never mind let's get to work then"

On the floor, Ritsuko was stirred from her slumped and was faced with Shinji helping Misato out of bed. Why the hell did she feel so cold, she then realized why, she covered up herself with a blanket, even at 29, she felt embarrassed when a young boy she had seen naked dozens of times see her like this.

"Good morning Ritsuko" Misato yawned as she got up

"What are you two doing at this godforsaken hour?!"

"Our jobs…" Misato yawned as she walked to the door "…Shinji has to deliver the tofu and I have to make the daily store stock of Tofu"

"What?" she continued to yawn

"Come on…" Misato picked her off the ground "boy you're a lot heavier then before..."

"Shove it" Ritsuko coldly replied,

Ritsuko didn't understand a single thing that was going on, Misato up at 3am instead of 3pm? Something wasn't right with her image of her. Misato was healthy, fit and reliable; and here she was with a dressing gown, tired, out of shape and dying for coffee. Why was Misato the good angel now?

"Here Dr Akagi-san" Shinji gave her cup of coffee

"Alright Shinji, load the tofu in car, ill be down in a second" Misato said to him, Shinji complied and walked down the stairs,

"You make him do all the odd jobs of the shop?" Ritsuko grunted as she sipped her coffee.

"It's his life; he knows he has to do it anyway" Misato said "come on, I have to see him off"

Misato walked down the stairs in her night gown with coffee; meanwhile Ritsuko slowly reacted to her comment,

"See him off…wait a dam second!" Ritsuko hurried down the stairs in pursuit of the two. Outside, Shinji finished loading the last crate of Tofu in the back of the car and got into the driver's seat. Misato stood beside the car and waited for Shinji to finish his coffee, Ritsuko walked out and was greeted by the sudden chill of the coldish September air,

"Misato, what are you thinking?!" Ritsuko thought "Can Shinji even drive?!"

"He can, and quite well I might add" Misato said

"You're kidding right?"

"I'm not kidding" Misato said "Shinji drives full time for the shop"

Shinji sighed and waited for the two to stop arguing about the facts, before it got any further Shinji interrupted

"Just make her watch the video"

"What video?"

"Never mind" Misato said as she collected Shinji's mug "alright, take care Shinji"

"I will" Shinji replied as he rolled up the window and drove off down the street.

Ritsuko walked quickly to the road and next to her car to see the taillights of the black Trueno drive off into the distant corner and disappear. She turned to Misato who was waiting for her to come to her senses

"What video?"

* * *

Location: Karasuyama-2 High school, Karasuyama-2

Time: 08:20hrs

Date: September 18th, 2017

"No way!" Toji yelled in surprise

"You're kidding right?!" Kensuke spoke

"What's going on?" Naoko asked,

"What usually happens, nothing important" Shinji replied.

Shinji didn't think that telling them that Rei was back and alive was all that much of a deal, after all, they would be asking him about the Drift battle, which now felt like a distance memory. Shinji believed that it didn't really matter if Rei lived or died, now that he was a well decent distance from her again, he wished she hadn't shown up; it kept reminding him of that time he saw the dummy plug for the first time and it being destroyed. It scared him to think that Rei was part of his own mother's remains, something cruel and outright provocative.

And Ritsuko; what respect did she have for himself and Asuka? Non what so ever, so why did Misato give her somewhere to stay? Maybe she was trying to be kind and give reason for Ritsuko to return the favor. Misato must've had some righteous reasons in her head to be letting her into the house. Shinji decided to just let things play out as they did, there was no point trying to make a stand now.

"It is important" Toji replied "its Rei Ayanami we're talking about here"

"Rei who?" Kazuma taking interest in the debate,

"She is an old friend of Shinji here" Kensuke said "they use to be real close friends for their own reasons"

"I see" Naoko said "so is she an ex?"

"No!" Shinji replied

"Really?"

"Rei and I had similar backgrounds alright…" Shinji explained "but there is something about her that irked me and I just couldn't talk to her anymore"

"That's mean Shinji-kun!" Naoko whacked him over the head "not liking a girl because she was honest?"

"She didn't tell me" Shinji sighed "in fact, I don't think she knows"

"Then why have you got it against her? It's very rude to believe a rumor instead of the girl"

"Unfortunately…"Shinji said "it was true, and it has haunted me for years since…"

"Haunted you?!" Naoko sounded confused,

Hikari, Toji and Kensuke stood on, watching Shinji talk repeated hits from Naoko about this girl. They knew about Rei's true personality; through second hand accounts form Misato and Shinji, he wasn't lying about Rei at all. After they had learnt the secret to her own existence, it made them feel sick that she was even their friend.

Despite the setback; Shinji after some time overcame the difficulty of seeing Rei as a biological clone of his own mother and more as a different person then anything else. But by the time he did that, Shinji was removed from NERV, mostly likely to never see her again; oh how fate rewarded him he wished he knew.

"Well doesn't matter" Hikari said "we'll have to try out best again to make her feel included and welcome"

"Yea, you're right" Shinji said 'although I don't think Rei would care anyway'

Shinji slumped back into his chair and let time roll on. Eventually the others returned to their seat and started their work. Shinji pulled out his books and started his work. Strangely Shinji couldn't fall asleep, he didn't want to. With the memory of that dream was fresh on his mind, he suddenly feared of falling asleep, or more likely that dream. Even Misato agreed that the times when Shinji screamed in pain from it, Shinji sounded like he was in tremendous pain.

For now, Shinji had too much on his mind, how did hi mind go from the warm and deep feeling of his drift battle win to this harrowing nightmare and sense of fear from his past? Shinji had always done his very best to prevent his past from dragging back, save that Misato and the bridge bunnies trio were the only people that were only people from NERV that were involved in his life now. It felt that with arrival of the Doctor and Rei, so did the arrival of his old problems.

The lesson surprisingly rolled on quickly to midday, Shinji didn't notice the time fly, he was too busy trying to stay awake and learn 'classics' to want to fall asleep. Hikari looked over to Shinji with some degree of concern, she knew about the hardships that Shinji faced, but this was a strange impact that nobody could've guessed. Shinji was certainly handling it well enough she thought. If he really wanted to, he could've kept driving out of town when he did the morning deliveries and practically run away again.

It surprised her on that note; Shinji could've if he was truly scared, but instead he showed up to class and tried to act as calm as possible, but she knew that Shinji would have to vent sometime soon. Hikari hoped that Shinji at least the common sense to not hold it all in like a certain other person.

"Ah…that was boring" Kazama yawned as the class broke for lunch "Shinji what's the matter, you didn't fall asleep once in class, did you suddenly decided to try being an A-grade student like miss smarty pants here?"

From the other side of the room, Hikari threw a pencil at Kazama like a dart; Impacting on his ear.

"I heard that!"

"What the hell?!" Kazama replied before turning to Shinji "how did she hear that?!"

On the other side of the classroom, Naoko looked at Hikari in amazement

"Where and when did you learn to throw like that?!"

"I've had experience…" Hikari eyed Toji and Kensuke, both of them reacted with fear.

"…you got to teach me that!" Naoko laughed,

Shinji got up from his seat, everyone was waiting for him to get up and go with them to lunch. He couldn't complain about their level of concern when he was like this. But Shinji never could relate the horrors of being an Eva pilot. He never told them about the dream, practically because of the role Toji played in the mission that forced Shinji to remain ever quiet about the inner working of his mind.

He sighed, if only there was a way for them to know.

* * *

Location: Mecha Gamers, Cherry Blossom Avenue, Karasuyama-2

Time: 16:05hrs

Date: September 18th, 2017

Shinji slumped back, or forward onto the counter, his stool had no backing, and he had already fallen back once today, he would be a total fool to repeat the same thing twice in one shift. Kensuke was out the back unpacking a box of manga books to supplement for the sales they made on Saturday, apparently, the drift battle attracted all sorts of people, families even. Chisame even said that the family he redirected to her went out to watch, completely surprised to see the same black Tureno that saved their vacation battle it out with a white Sileighty.

Apparently amongst the crowd were some anime enthusiasts, which explained the rise in sales on Saturday. Shinji wondered how he had never heard of these races until Takashi came to him and challenged to race. Maybe Shinji was just confused and stupid. It didn't matter now; he apparently was the star of Karasuyama-2 for his victory battle over Takashi. But Shinji knew and from what Keiichi said; he had a lot of improving to do before his next battle. Particularly before the next battle; Shinji remembered vividly that he had another person hunting him for a battle, Touya and his Blue Nissan Silvia.

How come he hadn't seen him yet? Maybe he assumed that Shinji was going to battle right after the Sileighty battle. No that would be stupid; Shinji was told that he only had to battle once that night. Before Shinji mind got itself in an endless cycle of questions and more questions. The sound of an engine sounded around the corner. Shinji was too pre-occupied in his own mind to really notice the car, but Kensuke surely noticed it, if we weren't muted by a wall that was separating him with his mp3 playing some crazy super-beat music.

He looked on outside as the car slowed down and stopped just a few meters past left side of the window. Shinji then noticed it, or rather the tail end of it. He suddenly knew what was coming and hid is liberated copy of Kodansha, and prepared himself. Touya entered the store, with his assistant nowhere to be seen.

He looked around the store until he found Shinji sitting at the counter, pretending he didn't notice him enter the store. Touya smirked, Shinji

"I ran into the owner of the tofu shop in town this afternoon, she said I could find the driver of Karasuyama-2's Black AE86 here"

"Yes…" Shinji replied honestly "I'm him"

Shinji suddenly remembered who he was; Touya was the other man trying to force Shinji to pull back from completing in the drift battle. Shinji didn't feel himself freeze, but instead he prepared himself to defend himself, it was strange as he never felt like she should defend himself against anyone that objected his will.

"Well, you proved me wrong kid" Touya started "your beat Takashi, close, but still all the same'

"I know…I was lucky" Shinji defended "everyone keeps saying that"

"So you already know…and I know that you have been trying to learn how to rely less on luck"

"How did you…"

"Last night and this morning; I watched you at the intersection coming down…"

Shinji didn't noticed a car parked there, maybe he was parked off the side road and he couldn't see him there, how did he know when Shinji would be delivering? This racing world was becoming real weird nonsense, it was like there was an underground intelligence gathering community that knew everything about the road racing world. Shinji again wondered if it was a good idea for him to even be getting involved in this crazy world of drift battles and what other crazy stunts that came with it.

"Despite that fact, I haven't withdrawn my challenge" Touya continued to demand "practice all you want, but now that I've seen you abilities, I won't hold back"

"Feelings mutual"

"This Saturday, 9pm…don't be late"

"I wont" Shinji replied sternly,

Touya nodded and slowly left the shop. Shinji hearing the car start up and rev once before it sped off down the avenue and towards the mountain. Kensuke returned to the front of the store, completely unaware of the conversation between Shinji and Touya.

"Hey, help me with these will you?" Kensuke asked as he was moving unboxed copies of some mecha mangas.

Shinji complied and helped stock the shelves with the new publication stock. He played back the conversation in his head, did he act right in front of him; Touya obviously hadn't gotten over the trivial facts that came with Shinji's abilities. Kensuke looked over, he had easily mistaken Shinji's concern for the one he had this morning regarding Rei, but if that was true, Shinji sure didn't look like that when he was thinking about things like that.

"Hey Shinji" Kensuke asked "you alright? I mean about Rei and that"

"Yea" Shinji sighed "I've gotten over that"

"Jeez that was quick" Kensuke said as he returned to the counter and sat down,

"Kensuke, can I ask you something"

"If it's about girls, no; if it's about racing, yes"

"What happens if you don't go to a drift battle challenge?"

"You mean if you don't accept?" Kensuke "Well, its kind of okay to turn down a challenge, sometimes there are crazy races people turn down for good reasons, one is something called a 'gum tape death match'…"

"No…I mean if you don't show up at all, even if you did accept"

Kensuke looked at Shinji seriously, he realized now that he wasn't thinking about this morning at all anymore, something triggered him to think about the race again. But why was he all of a sudden asking this?

"In the racing world, there is no worse disgrace then refusing to battle after you accepted to" Kensuke explained "you promised yourself to battle Touya didn't you?"

"I think so, I mean I accepted the challenge…I think" Shinji paused "but with Ritsuko and Rei now there, I don't know what'll happen if I went to another battle"

"Hmmm, in other words you acted before you thought it through"

"Yea…"

"Well, it's too late to ask him to postpone it" Kensuke slapped his friend on the back

"That's not all of it" Shinji said "I also need to improve my timing, especially on the first half of the course, I have till Saturday to get my timing perfected"

* * *

Location: Mt Kira Road, Karasuyama-2

Time: 19:12hrs

Date: September 18th, 2017

Shinji completed his evening delivery run and his second practice lap for the day. Shinji wondered to himself if it was really worth all the effort of constituting all the effort trying to get ready for this Saturday's match, especially considering his condition now, he didn't stand a chance. The reality was his mind was thinking too much, it was unlike other days when his mind was often empty of thought. He suddenly went from nothing to something in the road racing word, two people and his nightmares returned to haunt him. Suddenly he was pinned under a heavy pile of problems that he had no choice but to strain as hard as he could to perform and achieve under.

Shinji was so deep minded in his thoughts that even the complaints of a certain hot springs lady didn't penetrate his mind, not did the sympathetic concern of Chisame. It was when Shinji was like this that everyone became concerned about his mental well being. Shinji continued to drive slower; he just couldn't get the idea of what Ritsuko would think if she found out. Would she take unilateral action against her own friend that literally gave her a place to hide from the labs?

Shinji slowly pulled down the narrow street towards the Tofu shop. When he got home earlier, he noticed that the blue and white Mazda had gone, and so did Misato, Ritsuko and Rei. Apart from the note on the counter; implying that they were doing a few errands, Shinji knew what to do if she was gone and continued loading the Tofu for the delivery run. According to the note, Misato went to go food shopping, buy a new futon for their extra guest and getting Rei clothing and some other paperwork.

It seemed correct to assume that starting tomorrow; Rei would be the newest student at school, and for a short time; a resident of the tofu shop. Shinji knew that he had to be sure that Rei knew about the pact to not say anything about her past and that they were all in hiding. But it felt inevitable; one day Naoko and Kazuma would find out about Shinji and his friends real past, and they again would become outcasts. In the worse case scenario be completely forced to flee town. But for now, Shinji hoped for the best that they would never learn his dark scar of a history. He felt determined to not let them find out about the true nature of his past, not yet at least.

Shinji looked ahead and was about to turn the car before he noticed something peculiar; he didn't notice it until he reached it, but the Mazda had parked in the Trueno's spot next to the Tofu Shop. Shinji sighed and reversed the car and then parked it out front of the store. Shinji got out and locked the car, he walked down the side of the building towards the backdoor; Misato had already long since closed the front of the store for the day and gone upstairs. Shinji wondered what great mess would meet him; three girls, one was well known to make a university dorm look like the Vatican City in terms of cleanliness. Another who was too determined with her studies to care about her surroundings and the last one simply had no understanding of the emotions to care.

Shinji walked up the stairs of the building and into the foyer/dinning area/living area of the apartment, to his surprise, the mess wasn't 'as bad' but typical standard. The kitchen had messes on the bench dating back as far as this morning. The living room was degraded back to its normal state of a beer can graveyard surrounding the couch. The television on women's boxing again, most likely the result of their resident perverted pet penguin's search for something to enjoy with his beer.

"Hey PenPen, I'm back" Shinji spoke to PenPen, pretending that he was a real person, which was a questionable in itself. Shinji could hear the shower in use; 'good someone is home', Shinji thought to himself, he already guessed who was where. Misato was on her bed sleeping, Rei was sitting in his room and Dr Ritsuko was in the shower.

"Hey Shinji" Misato voiced from her room "Ritsuko is gone out to buy ramen, and Rei is in the shower and I'm just getting changed"

'Well I was right on one of them' Shinji sighed; he knew that Misato was lying down sleeping when he got home. Shinji took this opportunity to walk into his room. He opened it up; it was exactly the same way he left it, except a futon was folded up and in the corner, as well as a bunch of bags next to his desk, as well as a girl's white and blue high school uniform hanging on top of black school uniform blazer.

This bizarre scene was starting to scare Shinji a lot, what was Misato implying with this setup. Whatever the matter, Shinji had lived with Asuka before with nothing but a paper wall separating them, and she was incurably violent. Rei was quiet and scarcely capable of anything beyond telling him to shut up. He had no issues with Rei being only a few centimeters away.

"Oh, Shinji-kun" cheerfully spoke Misato walking into the room to find Shinji standing in the middle of what once he called his room. "I'm sorry Shinji-kun; it's only until Ritsuko gets some money from Kozo and finds her own place"

"That's okay…" Shinji sighed "…I can manage it"

"Oh yea, I bumped into another road racer while I was waiting for Ritsuko to buy stuff for Rei"

"I know…" Shinji said sitting down on his bed "Touya said that he'll race Saturday"

Shinji then explained his dilemma, he was both panicking here, at school and now this was on his increasing burden to remain able to race, and keep up his work here and at Mecha Gamers.

"So you're worried about Rei and the race basically"

"Yes"

"Shinji" Misato sat down next to him "you'll manage it all out; let me handle Ritsuko and Rei, you concentrate on the race. Hell, after that guy's attitude towards me today, I won't forgive you if you don't even at least show up and show him what you're made of"

"I know…I won't run away" Shinji said "I promised myself, I won't run away"

"Then don't" Misato petted his head "come on, I think Ritsuko is almost…."

Both Misato and Shinji were left in some level of surprise or shock as they looked up and were met with Rei, draped or dressed in only a towel around her body. It covered her main body, but still left some degree of Rei's unintentional lack of rationality towards her own appearance. Without hesitating Misato covered the eyes of an already hesitating Shinji and dragged him out of the room by the head as quickly as possible. Rei standing there as she had absolutely no idea what was so wrong with her apparel silently waited until Misato slammed the room door shut.

"Someone has to teach her something about decency…" Shinji spoke like his body almost had a heart attack. Misato while finding this incredibly odd for an adolescent male to say that, in this case thought; she could understand the panic that Shinji would endure if Rei kept surprising him like that.

"As I said…I'll handle Rei, you handle Touya" Misato winked,

'Great, I don't know what will kill me first…being here or an accident in training'

Just before their conversation could end, Ritsuko walked up the stairs and into the apartment, carrying with her the takeout Misato said would become tonight's dinner. In any matter, Shinji wondered if his life would ever return to the normality that existed a mere fortnight ago. He almost missed being bored and bothered with the quiet life.

"Welcome back Ritsuko" Misato cheerfully replied "what has the good doctor prescribed?"

"Ramen and curry" Ritsuko put the bags down on the table and started sorting it out "how was the 'delivery run' Shinji?"

Shinji didn't know why Ritsuko had to empathize that, she should've already established that it was Shinji's way off earning his keep in this place, and that it was a lot better then trusting Misato to drive something as delicate as Tofu up a mountain road. Hadn't Misato settled that argument yet, nor had it ever happened?

"It was a quiet drive…nothing special" Shinji spoke

Another three minutes later, Shinji, Ritsuko and Misato sat at the table, on the table was takeout for four,

"…hey Rei, hurry up and finish getting changed"

"Coming" Rei said from behind the closed door

Shinji looked wayward towards his room's door to see Rei walking out. It was an odd sight for him. She was dressed in a simple white shirt with pink sleeves and blue jeans. When Shinji thought about it, this was the first time Shinji saw her wearing normal clothes, other then a plug suit, School uniform, or a hospital robe.

"Is something the matter?" Rei said as she saw the two older women a teenage guy looking at her strangely

"No…" Misato said "it's just…"

"You look okay…" Shinji said

"Thank you, Ikari-kun" Rei nodded politely before she walked to the table and sat down. One could swear that Rei enjoyed being complemented by the only guy in the house; as Ritsuko swore she saw the slightest fragment of a blush on Rei's face.

"Shall we begin?" Misato quickly clearing air of distilment,

Everyone started eating their meal, Shinji noticed that Ritsuko's order was quiet similar to Misato's eating habits of yesteryear, where Misato ordered a medium ramen, Ritsuko ordered large. It looked like the doctor didn't really care anymore. Shinji felt that she might have to help her get her diet on track, just like he did with Misato.

"So Shinji" Ritsuko asked between mouthfuls "Misato tells me you can drive quite well"

"I learnt slowly, and I don't drive crazy or anything"

"Really…then why was Misato talking to that guy about you and a race?"

Shinji shot a glace at Misato would thankfully didn't have anything in her mouth

"You heard that conversation?"

"I was only 10 meters away Misato, and the guy was loud as hell, how could I not notice?"

Misato and Shinji were quite worried, what was she going to do, report them to the police, blackmail them to stay her for longer? Rei finished her small ramen meal before she started to talk.

"According to what I heard, a man called Touya said that he still wanted to challenge Karasuyama-2's downhill specialist, which he described someone that was familiar to Shinji that drove a Black AE86" Rei explained,

Misato and Shinji were dull shocked, Misato had only claimed a few minutes before that she had it entirely under her control yet in a matter of a few seconds. Shinji's comfort level in her promise was broken by Rei's words.

"He's doing illegal street racing?!" Ritsuko guessed correctly, only enraging her surprise with anger "Misato, have you lost your mind!?"

"No, I haven't'

"Do you know how dangerous those kinds of things are?! Shinji could get himself killed, he could kill others!"

"Shinji can handle it"

"He can't control a car that well; he is only in high school"

"That's what Takashi said, and he whooped his rear last Saturday" Misato boasted, before quickly regret throwing fuel to the fire

"He raced?!!"

"Yes, and that was his first race ever, and he even won" Misato said "and if you want proof, we have it on video"

Ritsuko had to see this video; it was mentioned in the conversation this morning. She couldn't believe she forgot about it. The debate of Shinji's abilities was concluded for a short time as everyone migrated to the couch. Misato set up the DVD player and started the video; and sat down to watch the video again. Rei sat on the other side of Ritsuko, while Shinji, was the unfortunate one left standing. Ritsuko quickly recognized the film; PenPen and Rei were watching it when she was telling Misato her past.

"You mean this video…"

"Shinji had Kensuke's camera in the passenger side seat, so he could record and study the video later"

Ritsuko paid attention and started watching. Shinji had already seen this thing enough times to not see the excitement in it anymore, so he sighed and waited on as the only person who hadn't seen the film watched it. For fifteen minutes, Ritsuko, Misato and even Rei watched intently as the race progressed from Shinji's point of view, eventually leading him to victory.

"I'm still not convinced…" Ritsuko concluded "there is no way Shinji is capable of that; he got lucky that's all"

"Stop putting the kid down, Ritsuko!" Misato defended and raised her voice "Shinji tried his hardest, and he will again for this race this Saturday!"

The room was silent for a few minutes; Shinji was surprised at the amount of resistance that Misato was giving him. Ritsuko stumped backwards on the couch. She knew that she was defeated, Misato had a point and she was comparing Shinji to his yesteryear counterpart.

"But still…" Ritsuko looked up to Shinji who was standing there "do you think you can do it again?"

"Like Misato-san said…" Shinji stood his ground "ill try my hardest"

Ritsuko was defeated then and there, she had never seen Shinji defy someone like that, and did Shinji grow a spine from his racing? Nobody knew. Rei looked at the video paused with a tingle of sensation in her eye. She had seen the video before, but hadn't realized that Shinji was driving the car. It made her feel something in her soul that made her wish she could've been there. Shinji looked up at the clock. It was already becoming late and he had to go to bed early if he was ever going to perform the morning delivery run. But somehow Shinji felt that it would matter how much he tried, his nightmare and Rei were dead sure to make sure that he got little of whatever pitiful amounts of sleep he needed to function.

Shinji rolled around in his sleep, yesterday happened so fast. Considering his peaceful life before that race and Ritsuko and Rei's arrival, it suddenly felt like the peace had ended forever, Ritsuko was Shinji's second most hated person, next to his own father. So with the appearance of his second most hated person being allowed to stay here; was not something he appreciated well.

All night his dreams became a living nightmare, his father was acquitted of his crimes and another batch of angels were coming to attack them, the technicians were dragging him away from his home in the tofu shop, all the way back into the entry plug of the Evangelion units. He was screaming repeatedly, telling him he didn't want to pilot anymore; it cost him too much already; Toji almost lost his life, Asuka almost lost her sanity, Rei really lost her life, only to come back into this terrible existence to pilot Evangelion again.

His dream kept repeating the same way; he would watch the news and hear that Gendo was free and put back in control of NERV, then a bunch of men in suits would bust the door in on his home and drag him away and throw him into an Eva plug suit. Then he would suddenly be lining up with the other children. Toji was shown with just a steel prosthetic arm and leg, Rei was standing straight and ready to move like a doll, an Asuka was next to her, her face had the painful look of a demented and mentally ill young girl.

And then like last night, they entered their entry plugs and became witness to all the deaths they caused as a result of their actions. Shinji couldn't sleep like this; he wanted back his dreams of racing down the hill again, so he concentrated hard. Suddenly he was in the driver's seat of the Trueno, Supposedly according to Touya; 'karasuyama-2's downhill specialist'. He didn't help but notice the fact that he was still wearing his plug suit and the audience still all looked like his father.

'Stop acting like a child' they all said with a deep groan, making it hard for Shinji to concentrate on his approach to the corner,

'I'm not acting like a child' Shinji hit the brakes and fought it as hard as he could and managed to clear the corner with mere inches to spare. He speed up again for a hairpin corner,

'Stop doing this foolish rubbish'

'It's not stupid!' Shinji yelled at the imaginative figures of his father along the guardrail, Shinji continued to try to ignore the voices in his mind telling him to give up and run away. But the strain was massive on him to keep his grip on the road and maintain his speed.

'Your useless doing this'

'No I'm not!' Shinji hit the brakes and slowed down at the next corner, he furiously and almost fatally turned the wheel to far over to the outside of the corner before he turned it towards the inside and created one wild drift around the corner, the speed he was achieving was almost unbelievable, unbelievable that the car didn't crash into the guardrail or spun out. Shinji grunted the pain he felt as the gravity push him towards the outside edge, he held tight his seat and gripped the wheel with an iron fist. He kept pushing the accelerator down with his foot, kicking it with no remorse.

If it wasn't for his intense anger we would have seen what was up ahead sooner, but it was too late, before he could even notice it, he saw the face of a young girl he knew scream before the inevitable could occur. Shinji hit the brake as hard as he could, but it only slowed down what was about to happen. Shinji saw and sensed the chill in that persons eyes before he recognized the person he was about to kill; Aisaka Okochiba.

Shinji struggle in his body exploded with force and he returned from his nightmare. Shinji like the previous night was sweating like it was the middle of summer; this was the second night he had that nightmare again. Shinji wondered if he would ever understand what he was getting this now; it was like a curse, was he going to have to live with these nightmares again? If that was so; the concept of him racing anyone this Saturday became nothing but a distant chance of occurring.

"Ikari-kun?" spoke a quiet voice that belonged to a young female nearby.

Shinji then remembered suddenly, and also frightening himself again that Rei was on the floor, apparently awake again. Shinji had forgotten the dilemma before of her half-sister as Ritsuko once dubbed Rei.

"Yes?" Shinji turned over, surprised to not find Rei towering over him half naked like the previous night. Shinji looked up at his alarm clock, it was only 3:15ish, in another hour, Shinji would have to get Misato up, do the morning delivery run, practice once on the downhill, and still be back in time to make breakfast for four people and then prep Rei on high school here.

"Did you have a nightmare?"

"I did" Shinji sighed and whispered "I'm sorry, did I wake you up?"

"It's alright" Rei replied softly

Shinji found her reply slightly odd, the Rei he'd known was never known to talk so…informally to anyone like this, even before the death of Rei II; she never had such a human touch in her speech. Maybe Ritsuko had taught her some basics of human emotion and interaction, it was a strange idea if she did, but it made Shinji see Rei from a whole new angle, almost unpredictable.

"Ikari-kun" Rei spoke again,

Shinji turned over to face Rei who was on the floor, leaning up and looking at him.

"Yes?"

"Is there something the matter?" Rei asked "Doctor Ritsuko once told me that nightmares were illusions of things that we fear the most"

'What has Ritsuko been teaching Rei?' Shinji though to himself 'is there something she forgot to mention the other night? Something just didn't feel like it was normal; this wasn't like Rei at all, it was like she was a completely different person on the inside now. Shinji held his breath and sighed, if this was indeed a changed Rei, relying on what he knew of her would do him no good anymore. Shinji had to start the slate clean with her, and now seemed a good as time as ever to start testing the limitations of Rei's mind.

"It's nothing against you, so lets be clear on that alright?" Shinji started to explain "ever since you showed up, I've been getting this impending feeling that it's the beginning of the end again"

"What do you mean?" Rei adjusted herself to hear Shinji talk.

"Ever since I moved to karasuyama-2, I thought that it was over; that I'd never have to pilot Eva again"

"That was the General point of our decommissioning from active service" Rei pointed out bluntly, Shinji noted that her ability to state the obvious was clearly still present. At least that was one aspect of Rei that wouldn't change anytime soon.

"But it's maybe my overreacting, but every time I think of Ritsuko, I think of my dad. And then I fear what would happen if got realized from jail. Would he track me down again and make me suffer?"

"That's unlikely" Rei again pointed out "Isn't your father serving a rather numerous sum of life sentences?"

"That's not the point" Shinji stopped Rei "but I kept thinking to myself, what if he came back? I mean there is got to be someone that still has sympathy for the bastard"

Rei blinked her eyes for a moment thinking about what Shinji said, Rei felt some degree of mistrust for the man he considered her own father, but Shinji showed her the true light the man strode in; it wasn't one of a generally pleasing shade of white and stark angel grace, rather one that left the shadows a hell in a brighter place then what Gendo had created for himself.

"Rei…" Shinji asked "don't you have nightmares?"

"I Strangely enough do" Rei said "they involve something similar to what you fear, being placed back into the Evangelion unit"

Shinji couldn't believe that Rei said that herself; she admitted fear, and that it was of the Eva. Shinji knew that something had changed in Rei, she wasn't her absent shell self that usually occupied her body. It was like her mind had finally developed feelings…and somehow started to understand them on her own. Of course some things she didn't know how to do yet, it was obvious by her errors so far committed.

Shinji looked down again at Rei, who's expression looked like a tired young girl concerned for a friend; definitely not the kind of expression that usually occupied her pail face. Shinji knew that this was going to take some getting use to.

"Ikari-kun…"

"It's Shinji, call me Shinji" he whispered quietly. Rei quietly felt another warm feeling in her body, but she knew what it was, but why did she have it now? Rei ignored it best she could and asked her question,

"Shinji-kun…" Rei hesitated at first "Misato said before that I couldn't say anything about my past, why is that?"

"Because they think your dead, they think Asuka and I are dead as well and quite frankly, I don't want them to find out the truth"

"Why?"

"Because if you do, you'll end up in an Eva again, same as me" Shinji lied, but it kind of had the same effect to what could happen. Rei hesitated at the response she got; Shinji kind of felt a regret telling Rei such a horrific possibility.

"I understand" Rei said quietly "another thing…"

"Yes?" Shinji spoke, starting to drift back to sleep again

Amazingly, another 20 minutes had past since their conversation started; he had to get up in ten minutes. He couldn't believe himself that he was holding a conversation with Rei, the girl who remained silent as a child, now she was totally different, with a little more mental training, Rei could almost be a normal teenage girl. Shinji was about to say something to that effect before she learned over and noticed that Rei had silently fallen asleep in the few seconds since he finished talking.

He spent a minute trying to hear the faint noise of a girl's breathing, that and her chest, her lungs inside inhaling and exhaling provided evidence that she was still alive and healthy. Shinji felt extremely weak looking at her like this, when asleep, Rei to the naked eye looked absolutely normal and innocent. No one expect those who knew her personally would feel this as something out of her ordinary character.

Shinji decided to it would be best to kill his alarm clock and let Rei sleep in with out the buzzing interruption of the 3:45 morning buzz. When the time finally came; Shinji slowly slipped out of his room carrying his work clothes, careful to not to wake the girl sleeping on the floor. Shinji wished her a good remaining few hours of blissful sleep and closed the door behind him.

* * *

A/N okay, time to break silence on this, im kinda knew im taking a risk with the first part, so i dunno yet. if it really is bad, ill go back in rewrite it 


	8. Episode 07: Introductions and Lessons

After Evangelion

Episode 7: introductions and lessons

"As I just said before, please make Ms Ayanami-san feel welcome to this school and be diligent with her like you would your own friends…" the teacher finished his short introduction of the new student standing next to him. Expect for Shinji, Hikari and the other two of the stooge trio, all the other students fixated their stare on Rei. All of them were met by Rei's own glaring icy stare that complemented her straight and cold face.

Shinji was back in his usual seat, not at all impressed by this; however he found the irony in this. When Shinji first moved to Tokyo-3, Rei was the same as he was now, bored; while Shinji was down the front of the class being stared at by everyone. It felt odd to have the roles reversed this time round. But after last night, or this morning really, Shinji saw Rei in a completely different way, Shinji never contemplated Rei was even possible to have feelings at all, let alone understand some of the basics.

"Ms Horaki" the teacher called the class representative to her undivided attention.

"Yes sir" Hikari replied

"Can you make sure to escort Ms Ayanami this lunchtime until she gets a good understanding of the facilities and other important information?"

"Yes Sir" Hikari sighed 'Well, it is a job of the class representative after all…"

"Good, now that's settled, where to sit you?" the teacher scanned his classroom, in the back to the left, he saw an empty seat behind Shinji "you can sit behind Mr. Ikari-san"

Shinji heard his name and suddenly lapsed into attention, only to discover Rei was already walking over to him, or rather desk behind him. Shinji didn't know if this was a good thing or a bad thing. Shinji was already pretty insecure with her being in the same school, little alone right behind him.

'I guess its okay, she needs to act normal and I can help her from here'

Rei sat down behind him and opened her bag; she discovered that she hadn't brought any books for class today. It wasn't surprising, Misato must've forgotten about that. In Tokyo-3; the books were provided, but this was a regular country school. Shinji sighed and looked back at Rei who was trying to figure out how to do her lessons today. In light to his prediction, Shinji pulled out a paper bag from his bag and put it on her desk,

"I knew that Misato would forget so I went ahead to buy one, there is a pen in there as well"

Rei was feeling a complex of emotions, if she was as regular as anyone else, she would've immediately blushed in embarrassment from the kind action that he took, but her experience with emotions was still a new thing to her, so it took almost five minutes for her to find the correct response,

"Thank you…" She whispered,

To the left, Kazama and Naoko looked on in what was described best as a mutilated formed reaction that had both surprise and confusion in it. Kazuma wondered why he had gone to the store on the way to school this morning, now he knew the contents of the package, he was grinning a high level of suspicion about Shinji's words yesterday. Didn't he claim that her very presence haunted him? Was Shinji telling them something else at them on purpose? Whatever the matter; Shinji was going to get one hell of an interrogation at lunchtime.

Behind Shinji and again to the left, Toji and Kensuke wondered if something had happened last night between Shinji and Rei. No, they knew him well enough, Shinji had a bit of a spine nowadays, but he wouldn't be as bold to do something like that to Rei; unless of course he wasn't being completely honest with them. While Kensuke ignored it and correctly assumed that Misato forgot, Toji looked at the implications of what he had done. Did he now like Rei? Whatever the matter; Shinji was going to get one hell of an interrogation at lunchtime.

Shinji continued his work at a good pace, again fearing of falling asleep, for now two reasons, one being the nightmares could also enter his daydreams, and that Rei was now watching him. He had always felt that with her the way she was now, Shinji had to perform at a top standard in front of her, to prove he wasn't a slacker or something low like that.

Shinji continued to wonder how he was going to survive, at the least to say adapt to the pressure of Rei, and the growing pressure of the road racers being pushed on him. What happened to just his peaceful bring life? Shinji felt that it was no longer possible; at home, work and school. Shinji was occupied by the presence of safety and a general aura that fallowed absolute boredom.

The class progressed along, everyone continuing to do their math class without any further problems, on the occasion, one person looked over at 'the new girl' as she continued to do her work alone; albeit with some inherit difficulty. Rei was smarter as a pilot, not so much so on paper though. Shinji also occasionally glanced back at her, noticing her miles behind everyone else in the class, she was only on the second page whilst others were three fold that.

He sighed at Rei's basic helplessness in everything she did. He noted to himself to at least try and get the former NERV doctor to at least tutor her on some math and help her perform like any normal student would. Shinji noted that, despite all this, she was doing quite well, but of course lunchtime had to yet pass him. He knew that was when his real headache would begin.

After three what felt like long hours of study and question answering, the class finally broke for lunch. Shinji sighed some relief momentary as the teacher left the room; His arms and back felt stiff from all the work he just did, he looked down at the work sheet. Amazingly he had managed to get through almost 12 pages of his text book, a new record for him; or at least for the first time in a long time where he really needed to push himself to prevent looking like a slacker.

Shinji sighed to himself and turned around, only to notice that Rei had quietly slipped away while his mind was cooling down. He looked around to see if she was in the room, only to find that Hikari had also left. He then concluded that Hikari was already giving Rei a guided tour of the school.

'Hey Shinji" Kazama spoke, Shinji was attacked suddenly in the form of a heavy slap on the back from his friend.

"Hey!" Shinji resented the greeting he got "what do want?"

"Since when were you such a stud?"

"I'm not" Shinji spoke "she is just adjusting and Misato forgot to buy her books"

"Sure…" Naoko entered the conversation. "Just helping out a cute girl by just happen to having a spare notebook and pen? That'll be the day…"

Shinji didn't know what to say, and Naoko's assumption was all mixed up, did she forget already that Shinji and Rei were living in the same place for now. Shinji was at least glad that details that Shinji and Rei were sharing the same room, let alone the same place; god knows what kind of rumours would be born from that fact.

"Hey Shinji" Toji and Kensuke came to their friend.

'Good' Shinji thought, 'these two will set them straight'

Shinji knew that they would never suspect him getting friendly with Rei, not even for a minute they doubted that fact. They already knew Rei's personality traits and her abilities. But after this morning, they had to question it themselves,

"Hey Shinji" Kensuke asked "Since when did you and Rei been on good terms?"

Naoko and Kazama picked up on this like lighting and quickly changed theories from stud to something beyond their imagination. It was just like them to get the wrong idea about everything they encountered, this accounted especially for the times they thought that Shinji and Hikari were dating. Of course then, that was a open disputed question about the percentage of that being true, or even possible.

If you could find the most annoying gossipers in the school it was these two; their partnership in crime secured some strange results in spreading just about every story that could be imagined in only a mere few hours. Shinji had less chance of letting then inform them of some other crucial facts. Of course, it hadn't come to that yet, and Shinji didn't want such a day to come.

"So Shinji…" Naoko asked slyly "so what does this girl have that I don't?"

Shinji wasn't exactly sure how to take such comments from Naoko, she was quite the loose cannon when it came to treating other people's feelings. Shinji was already quite broken in already when Shinji meet her. He had been use to people saying how he felt instead of himself saying it. It had him to being pushed around a lot by people, including and most infamously by his own father.

Shinji tried on so many times in the past to tell Naoko the truth about certain things, but how do you explain the truth when a complete lie made more sense? Shinji was constantly confused by this certain question; he'd never been able to tactical it head on or find a way to skirt around it everything he was asked such. To that end; Shinji became aware of the need to stand up for him and to enforce the truth, no matter how much he tired to imply the reality over fiction.

"Rei is just hopeless sometimes and needs a helping hand" Shinji said "in Tokyo-3; she always was forgetful, almost to the point where she could've been killed"

"Toji-kun" Kazama asked the taller of the two stooges standing nearby "is that true?"

"Yea…" Toji spoke with a very natural sounding sigh "Rei kinda is stupid in her own way, poor Shinji here has to keep Rei together, otherwise she'll just bug the next person for help"

"Alright…" Naoko displeased that his two older friends were able to come up with a plausible excuse "come on then, I'm sure Hikari is fed up with Rei's helplessness by now"

Naoko and Kazama walked off, almost in a snubbing fashion to the Trio. Shinji was left to wonder how much his existing friendship with them would remain if this kept up. Toji and Kensuke knew that it wouldn't be much remaining knowing how their lives were able to treat them.

"Alright, we got them off your back Shinji, now what's this all about" Kensuke started "what's with Rei?"

Shinji sighed; it didn't feel like these people would be able to give up on such a simple explanation of Rei, not at the very least because they knew him better then Naoko and Kazama, but also because they knew the exact true as well. Shinji sighed and took his lunch out, they others did so, knowing that if they were going to say anything, it was best they talked about it up here, away from the prying ears of the rumour spreaders of the school.

While Hikari would later lecture them about unauthorised stay in the classrooms, but they felt it was worth it. Shinji started getting them up to speed about the incident on Sunday night, and throughout Monday. Shinji wisely decided omit the information that related to her now staying in the same room as himself. Even Kensuke and Toji were incapable of shielding themselves from the believe that of the forbidden act between them. Shinji then started to talk about Rei in terms of mental changes, describing the meeting between him and her that same morning, albeit the settings were changed from their beds to downstairs while he was loading the car.

An unlikely scenario to be taking place, given the type of convostation; but Shinji felt that it would only launch provocative questions if he described himself going into Rei's 'room', or even vice versa. Once Shinji finished explaining his summary of events, the room was silent as Kenesuke and Toji wondered that thought back and forth. They knew that Shinji was hiding something, probably for their own good.

"So Rei has feelings now" Kensuke summarised "even if that's true, there is still a question on how she'll adapt, and it doesn't sound like she knows how to deal with them herself"

Shinji was about to reply something, but paused. He didn't exactly know how to answer that question himself, nor did the other two in the room. It was question only a female could answer; something that these men lacked. They needed someone like Hikari, or hell, even Naoko to answer it. Toji and Kensuke both agreed that they would ask Hikari, it would result in her being angry for less time.

Shinji continued to finish his lunch before Kensuke asked another question.

"So what are you going to do about the race this Saturday?"

"Well, as you said, I can't back out of it now" Shinji said "nobody forced me into this one, and it's my own fault this time that I'm in this position"

Shinji wondered to himself if it was a result of his inability to defend himself, or his own reluctantly that he never knew what was going on around him. Unfortunately, Shinji already had three main problems bugging him. One was the race itself; he couldn't under estimate Touya, he had already beaten someone similar, and Touya already knew about his trick that saved him last time. Touya probably knew how to prevent Shinji from gaining such an advantage.

The second problem was Ristuko and he defiance towards him racing, she said already that it was impossible, fro ma medical point of the view for him to even be able to race like this. Then again; it seemed the doctor had negative beliefs about every aspect of Shinji's life, no matter what he did. Latched on with Rei, whom had by now already started her questions about the racing. He had to worry about who was on his side at home.

Misato was acting tough and brave defying her own friends belief, one that over a time had diminished their trust in one another. But even Shinji knew that Misato had her own doubts somewhere hidden, Shinji just hoped that he could win this race and confirm Misato's hopes that it was no fluke last week.

The final problem was Shinji's sleeping habits, already two nights in a row, shinji had lost lseep over a recurring nightmare which its last eprisode of events almost cost him his sanity as a pilot Evangelion's. despite how much Shinji improved when he was awake, he had never faced a way to defeat his demons where he couldn't be protected by Misato and the others. He was all alone to defeat these people in his mind; and it was a battle that was already starting to cut into his practice.

On all the mornings this week, Shinji had stopped driving practice so he could get some rest while he was driving. Without the pitiful half hour naps he had, he wouldn't be able to get to school and buy a coffee. Shinji was living on only his coffee and whatever he could get, he couldn't get anything from his normal sleep, not with Rei and his nightmares keeping him up.

Before their conversation could continue, the class bells range indicating the end of lunch, the stooge trio quickly made themselves absent from the room and then at their correct time, return when everyone else did. Shinji knew it was plain stupid to pretend to be away, everyone knew where they were anyway.

* * *

Location: Karasuyama-2 High school, Karasuyama-2 

Time: 15:02hrs

Date: September 19th, 2017

The classes ended for the day finally, So far, Shinji was impressed by Rei, so far not one conflicting thing had been said about her past, mainly because Hikari had managed to use an entire lunch hour lecturing her about the school. Shinji had to thank her later. Toji and the others had already left for home; they didn't have their jobs to attend to this afternoon. Kensuke and Shinji on the other hand had their work at mecha gamers to do.

Shinji mentally noted to himself that he had to buy Rei her other books for class tomorrow, it wasn't a very demanding task; at least he could equip her when Shinji came home later on. Shinji was about the other way down the street to work before someone tapped him from behind. Shinji then realised something was amiss, another second later; Shinji had already answered it himself.

"You'll have to go home alone Rei" Shinji sighed turning to the person behind her "I have w…"

Of all the times Shinji wished he wasn't such a self assumed idiot now was the time, instead of a pale skinned girl with deep red eyes staring back at her a shorter girl with much more warm coloured skin and blue eyes.

"Asisaka-san?" Shinji replied embarrassed "I didn't notice, sorry"

Standing in front of her was the girl that had come by the store several times now. Wearing a crisp brand new school uniform, and her long hair tied back, even Shinji had to admit that she was a cute looking person dressed like that. Shinji looked up ahead, and saw hikari and rei at the entrance of the school. It was clear that they hadn't seen him make a fool of himself, not yet at least.

"I'm sorry" Asisaka said bowing "I shouldn't have surprised you like that"

"No, it's just been" Shinji kept his left eye on the two girls walking slowly towards him "…a very long day"

"I see" Asisaka "are you going to work now?"

"Yes, and a few things on the way" Shinji noted "what about you?"

"I was thinking…"Asisaka looked down for a moment "…of dropping by the store again"

Shinji was in a bind, if Hikari and Rei weren't around, he wouldn't mind, but Hikari would surely get the wrong idea and Rei would be asking him questions later on in the day. Whatever it was, he had to make something happen fast. On the one hand he had to tell Rei to go home, and on the other, it was quiet clear that Asiaka wanted to be a friend to him.

"Sure…just wait around the corner, I have to talk to my class rep about something first" Shinji lied

Asisaka lit up in surprise and did what he said, Shinji sighed some relief, just as that happened, Hikari and Rei entered earshot. Hikari looked up at Shinji who apparently was waiting for Rei to come out.

"Hey Shinji" Hikari said "are you going to take Rei home? She was waiting up at the classroom for a few minutes before I told her where you go"

Shinji sighed; he'd have to take Rei home as well? No, he'll have to let Rei tag along with him and still let Asisaka talk to him. It was like a juggling act on a minefield, even if he could solve the problem, all it did was buy some time. Shinji sighed, he was going to have cut his losses and just be honest with them.

"I suppose ill take her with me to work, she'll need to buy some stuff for school tomorrow" Shinji sighed "I also have to track down Asisaka-san"

"Who?" Hikari said before her eye twitched "…and why?"

At the same time, Asisaka froze in surprise to mentioning her; 'track her down?' what was this about? He was just talking to her; what was Shinji talking about. Little to anyone's knowledge, he had made up another time buying plan from preventing a misunderstanding between them.

"Oh, Asisaka approached me about working part time at mecha gamers" Shinji again lied "I said I'd take her to see the boss and stuff"

Asisaka wondered what was going on and what was Shinji concocting in his mind. She decided to have a peek at the girl she was taking to, she slowly creep herself to corner edge of the school gate and looked back, two wear Shinji and two other girls were talking to her. One girl she quickly recognised, she was the person that showed her around the school yesterday.

Asisaka cursed herself; she was in the same grade but not the same class as Shinji. It was annoying. Maybe she would have luck come next year; it would depend. The other girl she had seen with the class rep today, a strange person with bluish grey hair, you couldn't tell what color, but those eyes are what really scared Asisaka; a deep red, like she was a demon.

Her spying attempt didn't last long, Hikari noticed out of the corner of her eye the draping of someone's hair by the school gate. Hikari in her mind was starting to put two and two together, and like Shinji predicted; it was obviously to the wrong conclusion.

"You can come out now" Hikari talked to the gate. Slowly; Asisaka came out and basically surrendered. Shinji was feeling the sweat on his back running like a river rapid. He wonders how he'd get himself of this one. Asisaka, could tell be the tone of this girl's voice why he was so worried about her. While she might be right somewhere, it was still the wrong idea.

Shinji and Asisaka stood there being looked over by Hikari with her demonitc eyes, trying to find evidence of indecency on school grounds. Shinji was already tired of this and looked over at Rei whom was looking at her watch now

"Shinji, aren't you meant to be at the store in five minutes?"

Shinji looked at his watch, it was 3:15, he was not five minutes to go, he was five minutes late.

"I'm late!" Shinji said "I have to do this later…Rei, Asisaka, we got to run"

Shinji turned around and started jogging out, Asisaka and Rei did the same as they intended to catch up to Shinji. Hikari was left in amazed shock, or confusion as Shinji disappeared from the corner of the gate and down the street, with Rei and Asisaka on his trait. Hikari tried to chase, but her less athletic build make her loose track quickly.

"Hey wait a minute!" Hikari said as Shinji "I didn't think that…"

Shinji ran for a few blocks, there wasn't an actual urgency to be on time for work, Kensuke was already there and setting everything up, and therefore defeated the point of running. Once Shinji was 5 blocks down the road, he stopped jogging and the other girls stopped as well, Rei was okay, but Asisaka wasn't, she puffed for a few metres and coughed up air.

"Are you alright" Shinji said

"Yea…I just wasn't expecting to run" Asisaka replied

"Okay…" Shinji said "and sorry about back there, Hikari-san tends to get things the wrong way and ends up believing them"

Shinji continued walking, in complete silence, knowing Rei was on his tail as well, he wondered what she though of everything so far. At the very least he knew that he would have some explaining to do at some point tonight. Shinji just hoped that she didn't exactly think something as bad or as much as Hikari did.

They arrived at the store as late as Shinji said and received the lecture from his boss before he went in the back and changed to his clothes. Shinji approached the counter where Kensuke was keeping their guests entertained; or more like was starring at the girls in their uniform. Kensuke was no doubt like any healthy young male and knew when someone looked good. In this case he was obviously taking in the appearance of Asisaka.

Rei wondered why he was so intoxicated with her and wondered about asking a question, but her lapse of questioning herself first was slow and by the time she considered asking; Shinji had returned and already sorted his friend out.

"So Asisaka-san, what would you like"

"Well actually…you said it before" Asisaka reached into her bag and pulled out a folder "…I was actually going to enquire about working here"

"You are?" Kensuke said "Sweet! No more work all the time!"

"Sure you want to loose your 1000yen per hour salary for that?"

Kensuke paused on that thought. His pay was pretty good for a part time job, in fact he and Shinji had the best incomes for high school students; the reason being that was because the boss of the store just couldn't find people that wanted to take the job. Shinji didn't mind an extra hand, and Asisaka despite her shy appearance would be more then a welcome addition.

"Okay, ill talk to the boss and ill see about getting an answer for you by tomorrow" Shinji took the folder off Asisaka's hands and placed it under the counter.

"Thank you Shinji-kun" she bowed again "well, I have to go do the shopping"

"Thank you" Shinji saw the fellow student out the door,

Meanwhile at the desk, Kensuke looked over at Rei whom was absently staring at the manga section. Kensuke felt cheated sometimes that Shinji only had to breathe and could score the affection of several girls; while Naoko's motives were questionable at best, Kensuke could quiet openly agree that Asisaka had a strange affection for his friend. Why did the depressed weirdo get all the attention with ladies? Kensuke decided to talk to Rei finally

"Hey Ayanami-san"

"Hello Aida-san" Rei bowed quietly

"Relax" Kensuke replied "just call me Kensuke like everyone else does"

"That feeling is mutual"

"Okay…" Kenesuke decided to figure out what that meant later "anyway…can I help you with anything?"

Before the conversation could go any further, Shinji returned to the counter and sat down. Kensuke sighed and continued to watch the counter. Meanwhile Rei looked up and down what appeared to be the apparel, figurines and stationary aisle. Shinji didn't think much of this activity until he realised something on his mind that he forgot to do.

"Damn, I forgot" Shinji got his wallet out and checked it for money 'good I have enough'

A thought in contradictory, Shinji had a lot, he never went out or did anything special, so his savings were plentiful, and at the same time defeated the purpose of working. But Shinji always tried to think ahead to tomorrow, he had to think about whom he was living with too, and if the Tofu shop went belly up, his income would become vital. But for now, it hadn't come to that just yet; the shop had a solid list of clients and people that went to them for what they wanted.

"Kensuke" Shinji asked,

'What is it, stud-sensei" Kensuke joked

"Can you and Rei cover for me, I have to go out and buy her stuff for school"

"Sure…" Kensuke sighed; it wasn't like he had anything else to do "Anything else"

"Don't call me stud" Shinji laughed "you don't want be known as the guy that forced the downhill specialist of Karasuyama-2 to fall out because of what you said?"

Kensuke knew he could be serious, so his laugh was stifled in the same manner. Shinji picked up his school jacket and quietly walked out the store. Leaving Kensuke with Rei; it was an unimaginable setup.

"So where were we?" Kensuke asked

"I want to know" rei asked and pointed at the manga aisle "what do these books refer to? Topic wise?"

"They are fictional stories, various kinds, they can range from military ones which are called mecha's all the way to the female preferred ones which are mainly called Bishoujo's or love comedy"

"What do the Bishoujo's imply?" Rei asked interested

"Well, they are mainly just love relationships and all kind of stuff, usually your magic girl stories and other stuff like emotional relationships and other stuff like that" Kensuke explained "Why do you ask anyway?"

"I would like to purchase some" Rei asked "do you have any recommendations?"

Kenesuke found it odd for Rei to make these requests all of a sudden, but given he had nothing better to do, Kensuke did what he was paid to and walked with Rei into the asile

"Well, the manga's that girls like…id pick out" Kensuke tried to remember the manga some girl bought yesterday "KGNE: Kimi ga Nozomu Eien, that's a game too I think"

"I'll get the game as well" Rei replied

Kensuke turned to face her, what was she doing? How did this relate to her question? Whatever it was, Kensuke wasn't going to piss her off, in fact he was already enjoying the alone time with her, the idea of Shinji leaving was a good idea after all.

"Ayashi no ceres shojo is a another Bishoujo manga as well"

"Okay" Rei said "ill get that as well

"Do you have money?"

"Misato gave me 10000yen when I left; I believe I can suffix buying the game and the books of the last series you mentioned" Rei replied,

"Okay" Kensuke replied as he took the goods in question to the count and put them in a paper bag and wrapped it tightly, given the nature of some of the things she asked for. Kensuke gave the brown paper bag treatment; which had grown accustomed to a habit when serving his more perverted customers.

"Thank you for your assistance" Rei said as she put it in her school bag away from the prying eyes of anyone suspecting. Kensuke couldn't help but wonder why Rei just bought some rather questionable material for herself. He couldn't help it anyone and asked

"Rei, exactly why did you buy that stuff?"

Before she could even reply, the door chimed, only to indicate that Shinji had returned from his shopping trip, carrying with him was a paper bag full of books and stationary. Kensuke and be pretend going about their normal business, given that was what they seemed to be doing anyway. It was at this time Kensuke knew somehow that death would come early to him and do did the chances for Shinji to complete on the downhill flawlessly.

* * *

Location: Katsuragi Tofu Shop, Karasuyama-2 

Time: 18:10hrs

Date: September 19th, 2017

After the relativity quick shift at the store, Shinji and Rei proceeded to walk home; It was a quiet journey, Rei having not even spoken once the whole time. Shinji was already tired today and just wanted to get his day over with. He still had to do the evening delivery; to no small part something he didn't actually enjoy on his own. Shinji was already quite bored with driving on the morning and evening delivery, not only because it meant he had to deal with a certain hot springs hostess, but it meant he had to push himself to practice the downhill leg.

Shinji admitted that he had to get his timing correct for the first part, given the glaringly obvious fact he had only several days to bring himself up to pace before completing with Touya and his turbo S13. So far, Shinji was only able to mimic his performance during his race with Takashi's sileighty; which my no means was terrible compared to the talk Kensuke and Sousuke gave him the other day. Shinji simply was racing against the clock more then his opponent.

It wasn't like he didn't know how to improve; it was just that he didn't have a lot of time to do it. It was Tuesday now; he had five days to practice his run. Shinji was desperate to get his time down, but it was not going to improve with all the interruptions in his life now. Rei was like a dragging weight on his freedom; he had no choice but to baby sit her until she could be less dependent on him.

The two teenagers continued to walk down the quiet street alone, Shinji leading the way with Rei not far behind him. It wasn't exactly clear to him how he would explain to her what why he even raced, hell, not even Shinji knew why he did it. He had a lot of opportunities to quit racing, if he told Touya he wasn't interested, it would've been the end of it all. But it was Shinji's pride that snagged him in and made him and dragged him down into this race.

Shinji sighed as he opened the door, inside Risiko and Misato were sitting at the bench, Misato having the discreet joy of teaching Risiko the ropes of running their demurely small business; it was rare for Misato to be able to one-up the doctor at anything , let alone make her think of suffrage.

"Welcome back Shinji" Misato Smiled "the night delivery run is packed in the car already, you can go, once you have dropped your bags off and stuff"

"Alright" Shinji spoke sighing; he already hated doing the night delivery as much as he did doing the morning delivery. It meant meeting a certain annoying client twice a day instead of once. Shinji walked up the stairs and towards his room, to his absent surprise, Rei had already gone ahead and dumped her stuff on the bed, much to Shinji's dismay. Hadn't anyone talk Rei anything about keeping things in order?

He sighed as he hung his backpack over the chair and exchanged his school Gakuran coat for his regular grey jacket. Shinji checked his desk, apart from an unused laptop and some other rim rants, nothing else new. It was still 'his' desk still; Shinji took another minute of composing his strength before starting the next leg of his day, only to be stopped short a second later by Rei blocking his path out of the room.

"Yes Rei?"

"Where are you going now?"

"I have to do the night delivery job" Shinji replied honestly,

"Shinji…" Rei asked "may I ask you a question?"

"Sure" Shinji replied kindly, at the same he was biting at his tongue. He didn't have to guess where this was going. At the moment; he just wanted to go out of the house, even if it was driving. Shinji just wanted some time alone at the moment, something that rarely he got the privilege of enjoying.

"Do you drive like you do on that tape, when you're driving with the tofu?"

"Kind of…" Shinji bit his tongue again; he had already submitted defeat before even hearing the words,

"May I observe this technique of driving?"

Shinji sighed, he just couldn't say no to Rei or any girl for that matter. Shinji was either pessimistic or without a spine when it came to this kind of decision making. Shinji sighed for a moment before opening his mouth,

"Alright, but only this once…" Shinji said "if Misato asks, the doctor told you to come along"

Without even noticing it; Shinji had just correctly guessed the actual intentions of Rei coming along with him; But he didn't have to know that, the discovery of Risiko's curiously would've only made matters worse for his already dwindling moral.

* * *

Location: Sohma Family hot springs estate 

Time: 18:32hrs

Date: September 19th, 2017

Shinji was amazed at how it all worked out; Misato or Risiko didn't even noticed Rei following him to the car, getting in and driving off. For a moment, Shinji wondered if this was actually intentional; but if was, Misato was going about it in a truly unusual fashion in actually being effective about hiding it. He could buy it if Risiko was the ultimate planner of a scheme. But Misato wouldn't have, it was too perfect a plan for her if that was true.

The entire trip up length of Mt Kira road was quiet, with the exception of Rei asking more questions. What both surprised and disturbed Shinji was the frankness in Rei's speech; she was calm and talks normally enough to not be too quiet or too annoying. Shinji concluded that he either was going crazy or Rei was replaced with a normal person; with the latter being unlikely, Shinji began to worry about how he would be for the race.

The other hostess didn't actually even noticed didn't even notice Rei in the passenger seat. This initially worried Shinji about the reactions of what all the people that saw her in the car would say. So far, everyone didn't even notice or didn't care. Chisime was technically afraid of Rei; given what she had learnt of her recently and wondered if Shinji was crazy or scared. However after a quick explanation from Shinji, Chisime managed to remain calm enough to say hello to the former Evangelion pilot.

Again, Shinji was surprised at the gesture of Rei's reaction to greetings, she replied like a normal girl, albeit she had to practice a bit if she was deliberately trying to act shy. After that episode, Shinji wondered if he should ask Rei about where she was getting this influence from. Shinji initially assumed it had something to do with the doctor, but since this afternoon when Rei was in the store, she was acting weird.

The final stop on the delivery runs Shinji despised with passion, but he didn't know what kind of trouble he was in for today. For as far as the hostess was concerned, he could've picked up a hooker, or given that Rei was still in her school uniform like he was, the high school flirt.

"So who is she?" the hostess spoke in a manner that seemed to describe Rei as an object

"My boss asked me to pick her up from another hot springs, she is the daughter of one of her business associates" Shinji half lied,

"Some story, stop lying you little boy!" the hot springs hostess sprung back in a furious hiss. "She is just some hussy from school you picked up, isn't she?!"

Outside in the car, Rei was just sitting there, starring into space almost unaware of the conversation, that is to say that she wasn't looking at them, but could almost make out the words of the conversation. Shinji was praying that she wouldn't; given no telling what sort of chaos would be achieved if she discovered the level of insult she was receiving in her absence.

"Madam" Shinji started his defence "I can tell you now that I don't exactly want her in the car anymore then you might"

"A likely story…" the hot springs hostess decided to drop it for the moment "and may I enquire to another question"

"Sure" Shinji tired to dismiss her earlier insult.

"I've seemed to notice that you are coming here last on the delivery run" she started "and don't lie, I can tell; when you carried the tofu out of the car, I didn't see the other three crates"

"Sorry madam" Shinji replied "my boss has asked me do so, honestly"

"Well, ill be checking that with her, but I would prefer that you would deliver mine first, then do it in the order that your boss pleases"

"I'm sorry, to do that would break the rules with my boss, and we cant afford to spend so much money on fuel to do what your saying"

The hot springs hostess was mad inside, she could see that Shinji wasn't backing down today; why was this usually spineless twerp standing up to himself today? It had to be the girl, something, no; someone else was giving him the courage to stand up to her. She decided that fighting anymore while he was already in a field of considerable advantage. She'd target him tomorrow morning when he was still tired.

Shinji bid her a good evening and walked out of the building and got into the car. Shinji looked over at Rei who he saw looked slightly flustered. He drove down the driveway slowly, starting to get the fight out of his mind and his mind focused on his practice run. Before he could speak to, Rei started;

"Why does she hate you?" Rei spoke "is it because of my presence in the car?"

"Not really" Shinji decided to be honest with Rei, her expression told him that she was no fool and not going to buy any lie he told her.

"She seemed to believe I was something called a 'slut', am I correct?"

'No doubt, her hearing is dead on accurate like always' Shinji thought to himself. He continued to drive down the road to the starting point. He decided that maybe it would a good time to park; no sense getting killed while getting interrupted by her weird questions while tackling a corner.

"What is a slut?" Rei asked,

Embarrassed, Shinji explained for a few minutes what it implied, and that she was not one herself.

"Then she is falsely describing me" Rei continued to ponder allowed "or does she mean that I should be a slut"

"No" Shinji responded with a panicked tone "being one is considered a bad thing, you aren't well thought of by society and people don't tend to trust you"

Rei thought about it in her mind for what ended up being a minute. Shinji on a rare occasion wondered how that mass of matter came up with such strange notations sometimes and wondered how she'd be able to handle herself once she was an adult. No that was thinking to far ahead, he was sure they would have time to correct her misgivings before Rei did anything that would result in such.

"I'll talk about it later, but please refrain from interruption while I'll driving for now"

Rei nodded in response, much to Shinji's pleasing gratitude. He started the car up again and started his run. Shinji's main focus today was cutting his cornering sliding down on these corners and figuring out how to beat them. He knew it was simple; he just hadn't managed to figure out the timing for this part yet.

Inside the car, Shinji made the VVTi engine inside roar to life and start pumping pure energy into moving the car faster along the road. Shinji started to wonder how much of this was a good idea, to have Rei in the car right now. He still was not proficient in this area and if he slipped up he could stand the chance of wounding Rei and himself.

For the first several minutes he didn't push himself around the corners, he wanted to get timing right today, not try breaking any record. He was almost thrashing his engine to death with the constant gear changing and breaking, he had already realised the beast of his engine, but now he was driving it as weakly as possible. Not even attempting to push her.

After he had past the next hot springs, Shinji floored it finally. Rei who up to this point was feeling disappointed in this, suddenly felt the pushing force of the car's acceleration push the young girl back into her seat. She remained calm, in that Shinji confounded the confidence in him finally to show off the moves he had learn on this mountain. Rei took note of his intense driving style for the next few minutes, right up till they past the intersection, then Shinji started to surprise Rei to the point she was scared.

Up until this point, Shinji was just working on his timing; but after this point, Shinji could openly practice for speed, he knew the corners here a lot better then the former half. It was here that Shinji was being decided that he would jus finish this demo of his driving as fast as he could achieve. In this form; he feared nothing but the unexpected. He knew this stretch of road a lot better then the rest of Mt.

Kira road; and his understanding of the timing for here helped him recover from his match with the white sileighty.

It was here that Rei started to think more rationally how scary this style of driving was. The video didn't simulate the push of gravity into her seat, the cornering, and the sound of the engine was more ferrous then what the 32bit sound quality Kensuke's video camera could emulate.

Shinji was focused on his driving now; he almost completely forgot that Rei was even in the car. He thought to himself how glad he was to get blood stimulating in his veins again, the semi-excitement he first felt racing for the first time on this road only the previous week, it felt like ages ago since then. It was why at the same time Shinji was worried about his performance, he knew they wouldn't accept him as a true racer if he didn't push it to the limits.

It gave him a reason now; at the same time the driving passion the same that emulated from his mind and his nightmares formed the same goal had finally evolved beyond the cry of a spineless child. His desire to not run away had formed into a form of strength. His demand to improve his skills were the fuel to this fire, and beating the other racers would only enforce his defence towards the one person that attempted to break his sprit.

For five minutes more Shinji realised his anger onto the road, violently thrashing around corners trying to further improve his timing here. His rhythm was in key now; nothing could disturb his mind and his concentration on the road ahead. Every corner here, he managed to keep it no lower the second gear and then stretched his runs as far as he could go on fifth gear before having to lower it. In some sights, he was giving the engine a hell of a workout, the small 1.6 litre engine been pushed to the limits.

For the first time today, Shinji found a level of comfort he had been looking for since he got up this morning. Driving it seemed was his only escape from the realities of his world, and not Rei, not Risiko, and definitely not his father were going to take this freedom from him. He managed to start imagining his next three actions before the corner. It was so fast to him that it didn't seem like anything more then a natural flinch.

'Hit the brakes' Shinji did so, tapping first then hitting them to the floor. He then continued to perform the next steps. He started to move the wheel left and then once the car started nudging in that direction, he reversed the direction of his wheels and held on tight as the tail end of his car drifted outwards, his speed decelerated slightly, forcing him to lower to second gear. He obliged to the demands of his engine, then once he saw the line he wanted, he realised the foot and hit the accelerator again.

It was Misato that told him before that he should try different techniques instead of the ones he was already familiar with. He at first didn't understand the meaning of what Misato said at first; e only knew one techniques, hit it to the floor; this morning he noticed the difference it made to try different ways. He tapped on the accelerator; not to lightly, but enough to make the car notice. He breathed once for a form of counting and then hit the accelerator hard again.

To some surprise this actually did make the difference in control, not by a large degree, but noticeable enough to him. However tor Rei; he may as well be blindfolded and drunk, to her, even her mind couldn't keep up with the contemplation of Shinji's rhythm. It was wild, reckless, crazy and almost beyond the limits of what would be considered sane.

'How can he control the car, where is the secret to this control?' Rei wondered to herself. She had observed him, apart from being scared; she had managed to loosely adopt an understanding and notice a pattern of movement conducted by Shinji. Rei made her own analysis; it seemed he had to do it in this order only. He had to first slow down by breaking hard, then make the car swing into the direction of the corner exit, then once he cleared the corner, hit the acceleration, whilst avoiding colliding with outside guardrail or smashing head on with inside guardrail.

Rei felt something inside her, it was both fear and something else, at the same time she winced at demanding Shinji to stop this erratic driving; she somehow felt a surge of something in her veins that wanted to enjoy the feeling of…

'What is this feeling' Rei wondered in her own mind 'I'm not scared of him doing this?'

Rei focused on Shinji; his face, especially his eyes was locked looking forward. This left something of a complex feeling inside Rei. Was she excited over such erratic driving?

'what he is doing is dangerous, and fun?' Rei asked herself 'why does he not evaluate the level of danger at every corner? Why does he try to speed faster around corners? Why?'

Rei found no answer, just the form of more questions, some of which had intriguing possibilities, none of which she knew how to feel towards. For the remainder of the trip, Rei would be left scared by her own misunderstanding of herself. Before she had left; Riskto had asked Rei to accomplice Shinji on the evening run, and to observed and evaluate the ability of Shinji's driving.

Riskto's motive was to get Shinji to screw up even once on a training run; and with Rei in the car, Shinji couldn't practice the same amount of remorse, it would deepen the blow, enough for him to grab some common sense and give up the reckless sport. Riskito was still not convinced that Shinji was even capable of doing this crazy race. Despite the evidence that was shown, Misato even managed to get Takashi to come by the store and confront the former NERV doctor and explain, in some harshly bias detail in his part, how he underestimated the kid and how he out of the odds, beat him by no more the a hundred metres.

Shinji was pleased with himself; he managed to be back on Cherry Blossom Avenue by 6:50pm. That meant from the hot springs to the bottom, he had taken at the most, 20 minutes, a notable record considering. He didn't even see Rei being a disadvantage; she was perfectly quiet the whole way down exactly like he had asked. That was one strange thing about Rei you had to like, like Asuka commented often enough, she was like a doll; ask her to do something and she did it.

"you know you can talk now?" Shinji started "I've finished the run"

"I see" Rei replied meekly,

Shinji then realised at how scared Rei or any normal girl would be for that matter given what he was doing.

"Are you okay?" Shinji asked

"Yes" Rei said "I'm just confused"

"Confused?" Shinji himself was muddled in the mind by that reply 'scared I'd buy, but confused? Only Rei could…' Shinji thought and sighed,

Shinji drove a lot slower then normal now, just to let Rei feel more comfortable, that is of course if she was scared senseless from the racing on Mt Kira Road. Rei in her mind wondered what to say, her feeling was mixed on the matter, what was she feeling, whatever it was, it was slowly draining from her body now.

'Adreneline? Excitement? Enjoyment?' Rei dialogised her feelings to what she had been taught about them. 'I was excited about almost dying?'

Shinji pulled into the driveway; Misato finally had the sense to tell Risikto to move her car from the Trueno's parking spot. He backed the car up and stopped. Shinji turned the car off and took a solid breath before starting. But before he could start to aplogise, Rei finally replied.

"It's…exciting" Rei responded, leaving the rest of night with Shinji in absolute silence.

* * *

A/N a bit of a random story came with the manga series i picked out. cause i didnt know of any really sobby and hentei ones that came up, i asked some freinds on a IRC channel to come up with 3 sources to use; six hours later and 1000 trout slaps later we picked the said titles. 

apart from that, everything else im just winging at. the ending feels a little cut short, but i suppose ill let you judge that

keep reading and reviewing

Nighthawkimac/republic of imac


	9. Episode 08: Battle! AE86 Vs S13

After Evangelion

Episode 8: Battle! AE86 Vs S13

Shinji groaned in his sleep again, he was starting to have that nightmare again; all this week he hadn't been able to get a single hour of rest without this horrid dream having its say. Shinji managed to maintain some calm, every few moments Shinji would try to erase it by focusing on something else. His dream first race was now completely corrupted by the presence of his father chanting for him to practically die. Today he had to race the blue Siliva; Touya had met him on Friday to confirm that he was a go ahead for the race.

Notably, Shinji's lack of sleep was affecting him now; he was constantly falling asleep in class and at work. He couldn't afford to loose is sleep, but these were the only times he could at least try to make up for the sleep. Shinji was gambling on the prospect that he would be able to get some sleep tonight. If he didn't, this final backup was in class when Shinji could sleep then. Work demanded him to be awake all the time so there was no way he could actually sleep then, then he had to do the race.

Shinji had thought about the prospect of loosing on purpose, which was quickly followed up by the reactions that might come from that. He hadn't gotten his timing down on the initial half of the road. Shinji also hadn't managed to understand anything Sousuke had said to him the other day.

'oh no' Shinji thought as he found himself in the dream again, again it was the same décor of cave grey and white that made the environment of the NERV labs a disturbing feeling of comfort. Something was out of the ordinary this time, Shinji was on his own this time, Rei, Asuka and Toji were absent from their usual spots on the floor. It became a disturbing reality that Shinji was now operating under the impression that this was no normal nightmare; if such a thing was norm for him.

Shinji found himself surrounded by bodies. The air was a foggy red as the smell of blood and crazy sound of silence echoed throughout the surroundings. Shinji somehow guessed why this was. He managed to figure out where he was finally; he was in the main control room of the NERV headquarters. He slowly maneuvered around the fallen bodies, noticing and starting to realize who they were. He wasn't frightened when he saw the body of Misato lying on the floor, her body facing down, fortunately covering the bloodied face from Shinji's sight.

The bridge bunny trio was dead at their stations, the doctor was slumped against the wall with a curtain drag of maroon liquid running up the wall another meter. Shinji looked over the side and down at the other minor control stations, everyone was dead, everyone but one person.

"You caused this" echoed the deep voice above "you caused this and everyone died because of it"

"I didn't…" Shinji turned to face the station platform above the bridge bunny's platform. There he saw Gendo, sitting there like a judge looking down on a convicted criminal.

"You continued to be childish and forgot your responsibilities" Gendo bellowed his gruff deep voice.

"I didn't kill anyone!" Shinji yelled back "you killed them, all of them"

Shinji turned to leave the bridge and ran down the corridors trying to get out of the building. All around him, he saw everyone on the ground; he noticed that everyone's pose indicated that they died of gunshot wounds. He winced and kept running until he found himself in the car park that Misato used.

"It's your fault, don't bother running away" the voice of the villainous creature that was his father, echoed loudly in the hanger like place. Shinji ignored the noise and to his undeleted surprise; found his AE86 parked in the usual spot that occupied Misato's old sports car. He knew why it was there and ran to it. He quickly got inside and turned the engine on; the car was ready for him. He didn't hesitate hitting the accelerator and started driving as fast as he could up the long ramp to the surface.

Shinji noticed straight away that he could see more cars behind him, NERV's security division cars. They were mainly old crestas, nothing his AE86 couldn't be outrun by. Shinji finally broke the surface and immediately started driving in the direction of a road he knew that led him out of town. Shinji drifted around the street corners with precision and speed, not wanting to loose out to those dumb cars behind him.

He could see everywhere people on the ground, dead, in the same manner of that in the NERV headquarters. Shinji finally managed to get to the outskirts of the city and found road that led up a mountain. It was a mountain road similar to his new home, he was driving as fast as he had ever know his car to travel, he noticed with some degree of ease that he was managing to make very few mistakes in his technique up the hill, it was like being scared actually helped.

"it's all your fault"

Why could he hear his father still? Shinji managed to find out that answer in less time then he wished to know. In looking in his rear view mirror, he only saw the stomp of the feet of a purple and black foot, a massive one at that. His Eva unit, EVA-01 was hot on his tail and ready to crush him. His father was no doubt piloting the massive machine, ready to kill his only son. At present, Shinji was driving up a hill, in an underpowered car, with little to defend himself except the ability to turn at fast speed around the corners.

Shinji started to pick up his pace; he tried to hold the gear shift out a lot longer, trying to push more speed into his cornering. His 86 was working for him harder then it ever had to, but it wasn't letting him done. The roadway started to level out, Shinji noticed that he must've been at the top of the mountain by now. But at the same time, the corners were starting to get harder and harder for him. The speed of which Shinji could manage to maintain a steady pattern was starting to wear out thin; Shinji was starting to make more critical mistakes in his cornering and braking.

Shinji didn't know what speed he was going or what gear he was in anymore, he had lost track of such matters, his eyes were direly focused on the road ahead when he did a corner and the rear view mirror when he was on a straightway. The Eva unit was still there, it wasn't getting closer, at the moment, but the more mistakes he made, the closer it got to Shinji. Shinji knew what happened to things that got squashed by the foot of an Evangelion, and he never thought of the possibility of it happening to him.

The sharp reality was that Shinji was loosing, his skill just wasn't letting him run away from the Eva any faster then he wanted to. He was loosing now and it was only a matter of time before the massive steel beast was on top and able to crush his skull into the pavement. Shinji refused to give up, he refused to believe his own father, and he refused to let that excuse of a human blame him for his own stupid mistakes. Shinji kept trying to beat out his skill against the road, a winding never ending road that now was starting to go downhill, the pressure mounted on him to go faster and to perform more exact breaking methods on a smaller road.

It was a total nightmare to road racers, and it was added by the presence of the Eva, which its own appearance managed to scare Shinji into any form of manic fit. He just couldn't keep up with it anymore, Shinji was just not that skilled, his mistakes were making him almost grind the guardrail with his bumper, and it was only a matter of time. He guessed that it didn't matter how fast he went or how far Shinji went, he just couldn't keep up; then it happened, as Shinji entered the hairpin, his mind twitched for only a second but it did it; his mind reset and he lost track of the things he was meant to do,

He over steered and bumped his front left corner with the inner guardrail, he had lost control, before he knew it the car was spinning way to far out of control , his drift had reached the point where he couldn't pull himself out of this. The car skidded and did all kinds of things, but it crashed end first onto the outer guard rail and kept grinding the side of the car along it, until he came to a stop. Facing backwards, he could see the Eva's quickly approaching him, he tried to start up and drive again, but it was too late, he spent his last few seconds hitting the accelerator, the Eva rose its giant foot and piled it directly onto the Trueno, then it was black.

* * *

"Wake up!" Whispered the voice again 

Shinji opened his eyes with sudden, the pain of his dream finally approached his physical body, the whole affair jolting every single organ in his body to an overload, his whole body reproached to the point where…

'Oh jeez I'm going to…' Shinji jolted up and tried to find his window, but he was on the floor. He stumbled onto his feet and in a half blind tired to find the window, then it came. Shinji immediately held a hand against his mouth as he finally found the latch and opened his window before he threw up. It took five minutes for him to completely dry himself of the contents of what he guessed where the contents his dinner from last night and some extra stuff.

Shinji had for a long time had the tenancy to throw up like this when he had a violent nightmare like this. For the first couple of weeks after his move to this small town, Shinji seemed to develop this habit reaction, for this reason came to the resolve to puke out of the window into the gutter of the roof. He knew that it was a purely disgusting thing, but Shinji also had a short 'hold in' time.

He thought about what just happened, he had puked two days ago, but he had been awake enough to leave the room and find the toilet to do it. In his dream, but this time, he was disorientated by his fall of the bed. Shinji then finally remembered something, and he hoped she was okay.

"Rei" Shinji turned to face Rei who was standing up and giving the exactly look excepted of someone who got crushed by a falling person in the middle of their sleep. But she also looked more worried about Shinji then herself.

"Shinji" Rei asked in a semi-monotone voice, "did it happen again?"

"Yea…" Shinji pushed himself away from the window sill and sat down on his bed, eventually lying down again, still with the presence of Rei looking over him. Rei wondered why Shinji was so sick all of a sudden, he didn't tell her what the dream was about, despite her asking every night this week.

"Are you alright?" Rei asked again

"I'll live" Shinji spoke "how about you, anything broken"

"I don't feel or appear to have sustained any physical harm from your decent to on top of me"

"Sorry about that" Shinji sighed.

Rei lay down again on her futon on the floor. Shinji managed to calm down even more now that she was confirmed okay. Although he knew that Rei was lying, she obviously can't hide the fact that she was more worried about Shinji's mental state then her own health. What a strange girl, made stranger when combined by her history and her other mental and physical attributes.

"Shinji, in the novel I was reading before…one character had a nightmare where she thought she was about to die. When she woke up, her roommate listened to this character about what had happened and helped her resolve her fear of what she saw in that dream" Rei asked quietly "do you want to talk about it?"

'Since when did Rei read novels?' Shinji hadn't noticed Rei with any possessions of that nature before and didn't think it was out of the ordinary for her to own nothing. He did recall Kensuke telling him that she had bought something; he couldn't recall the name of it though.

"I'm sorry Rei" Shinji replied "it's nothing I can say that easily, I'm just afraid it might be hard for you to understand"

"Why are you afraid to tell me?" Rei spoke,

Shinji groaned a sigh, Rei noticing the reluctance to telling his problems.

"I see" Rei replied "then I request that we swap positions, just in case you have that nightmare again"

Shinji sighed as he saw Rei get up. At least this time she had been wearing something that was not alarming to his mental physic. He started to wonder about the prospect of these dreams occurring this often. In that case, he would have to understand Rei's wish and take permanent residence on the floor until she and the doctor found accommodation for themselves.

Shinji surrendered his bed and fell to the floor, still tired despite his four or so hours he managed to get tonight. Rei saw him drop to the floor and start to sleep again on her futon. She got into his bed and started to get her body use to the bed comfort of a spring mattress. It felt odd that she was in his bed, but that thought quickly subsided as her subconscious took over and she fell asleep. They would wake up again in 40 minutes to face another day.

* * *

Location: Mecha gamers, Karasuyama-2 

Time: 13:44hrs

Date: September 23nd, 2017

"Man you look tired" Kensuke took a look at Shinji who was slumping at the counter desk and was quite literally ready to die if he could. All throughout today, the precious four hours of sleep he got dissipated over the course of the morning. He had his final practice run before he had to face Touya. Shinji didn't know much longer he could take this abuse on his body. He figured he could sleep in the back room for a few hours, if he covered the store for the first half of the shift.

However, much to Shinji's apparent disliking, Kensuke was going out for the second half of the shift to do some errands before he went to the race meet. He supposed that it was his revenge for all the times that Shinji decided to leave the store without warning. So he was left to monitor the store himself; he wished the boss would hurry up and take a look at Asiska's resume and hire her, she would really help out right now.

"Just let me die" Shinji spoke in a low and tired voice "please…"

"Sorry man" Kensuke smiled "it's my turn to skip out and leave you with the store"

"Go to hell…" Shinji groaned, barely able to stay awake

Kensuke left and Shinji felt like wondering if he should really bother with the store and just sleep at the counter, if someone wanted to buy something, they would wake him up. No; he was tired and he really needed to sleep, but he had is priorities in order, he had to work. Shinji figured he could stand another hour before he couldn't physically do this.

"Hello?"

Shinji's head was on the bench, he heard a voice, meaning a customer. He sighed as he lifted his head up and looked at the person. At that moment he didn't know if he should feel relieved or if he should just hope he would die just now. Her presence thou did formulate some hidden energy to reimburse Shinji into mortality for a moment.

"Asisaka-san?"

"Hey Shinji" she said as shy as usual "I though I would come by and say good luck but…are you alright"

"Not really" Shinji yawned "I'm so tired…"

"But don't you have a road race tonight?" she replied worried

"I know…" he sighed "I just couldn't get any sleep last night"

Asisaka didn't know what she could do, she wanted him to win tonight, at the very least for the prestige of the local racers here. Always a shy girl, Asisaka never interacted with boys a lot, only Sousuke and from here, she was very knowledgeable with cars. She instantly respected Shinji when she learned that he was a road racer. She wanted to be a racer herself when she could afford a car and got her license.

"Um…"Asisaka spoke "do you want me to help out?"

Shinji didn't here that part at first, but when he did,

"Wha?"

"Well, you see…I've worked in stores before so I know to operate the machines and stuff" Asisaka started to babble "and if I'm going to work here…like your boss said…I could maybe…"

Shinji somehow wondered for a moment if it would be okay to pretend she was an employee for a few hours. On the one hand, he really couldn't care; it meant he could get some sleep in the back room. But he had only known her for at least a fortnight. He didn't want to give the impression that she was going to be used. One simple thing became something harder to imagine, he then wondered about it for a moment.

"I know that I'm only new…but I'm very trustworthy, honest...please"

'Why does she want to help me so badly' Shinji wondered to himself "I suppose…as long you don't have any troubles with doing anything else"

"Oh no, I have no other plans"

Shinji quickly gave her a tutorial over the store and where he could be found. She seemed willing, but at the same time he wondered if this was taking advantage of the innocent. He crashed on the couch in the backroom and quickly fell asleep hoping his morals wouldn't haunt him…although if it replaced that nightmare…Shinji could tolerate that kind of dream.

"Shinji-kun…Shinji-kun" the soft voice spoke

"Muh…wha?" His mouth breathed out his moans of confusion. He briefly opened his eyes to see that Aisaka-san was standing over his tired wreckage of a body.

"Oh, Asisaka-san" Shinji yawned and rumbled the strength to sit upright "is something the matter?"

"No, you just told me to come to you at the end of the shift to wake you up"

Shinji glanced a look at his watch; 6:30pm. He didn't except to be able to sleep for almost...Shinji did the mental arithmetic and realized he had been about to get almost four hours sleep. Not a single dream, not anything; Shinji was amazed that he managed to get a decent length of sleep without that nightmare, or any dream for that matter.

"6:30pm?" Shinji suddenly realized something "didn't I tell you to wake me up at 6:00pm?"

"Yes you did" Asisaka retreated whatever courage; she had been waiting for him to wake up for the last half an hour, she didn't have to wake up Shinji. She felt he really needed the sleep, and he found him kind of cute sleeping. She closed the shop up herself and waited on a chair next to the couch in the backroom; almost falling asleep herself, she then decided to wake him up so he could get ready for the race tonight.

"I suppose I needed it" Shinji sat up and un-kinked his arm before observing his surroundings "is Sosuske going to hit me if he finds you late home"

Asisaka realized she had forgotten that fact. She kept her mouth closed, but Shinji could tell by the red embarrassment on her face that Asisaka just remembered that.

"Come on" Shinji said "he is going to head up to the starting line of the course right?"

"Yea…but…"

"Come on, ill give you a ride" Shinji got up "I do owe you the favor after all"

* * *

Location: Mt Kira Road, Karasuyama-2 

Time: 19:44hrs

Date: September 23nd, 2017

To insure that Misato didn't get the wrong impression, Shinji had rung ahead to ask her to take a lift with Ritsuko in her car; on the excuse he would be late from work. When Misato offered to pick him up from his workplace; Shinji said he had to do something else on the way home as well, as that would be why he was so late.

Shinji led Asisaka down the narrow street to his home, the tofu shop with the black Trueno parked on the side driveway. He felt odd that he was taking a girl home with him; he had done so, with Hikari and Rei, but they were friends and he was comfortable with them. Asisaka on the other hand two weeks ago was just that shy girl who came in to do the pickup order. Shinji sometimes reflected on how he managed to attract this sort of attention.

Surely enough, and to his relief, the blue and white FC was gone and all the lights were out. This didn't mean anything Shinji knew as Misato could be hiding a camera, or even she herself was watching Shinji and discover whatever his secret was. After he had quickly changed upstairs; he and Asisaka left in his black Trueno for the mountain. Until he reached the started of the pass, she had remained quiet as a mouse, wondering how to talk to him.

Shinji didn't mind the quiet; he still had some difficulty in driving and talking at the same time, although he had the same degree of displeasure of trying to talk to this girl.

"So you didn't have any problems in the store" Shinji spoke finally

"None" Asisaka replied meekly

"So you now know how the store works" Shinji replied "it shouldn't be a hard thing to get use to if you get the job for real"

"Yes"

Shinji mumbled a shrug and continued to drive up the mountain, still feeling some morbid amount of responsibility for taking advantage of her time for his sleep. He noticed how refreshed he was now, it wouldn't last long thou. He might be able to park the car somewhere else while another race went ahead of him. Shinji wanted to feel completely alert for this race, the four hours of sleep would complement his ability to stay awake, but not his ability to concentrate.

'knowing Misato, she bought some takeout' Shinji thought pleasingly, the food would be hot and energy proficient, all Shinji had to do know was get focused and be ready to deal with the race ahead.

At the mountain top, Ritsuko was showing Misato how stiff upper lipped she could be on any given day of the week. For the last ten minutes, they had been parked in a spot, which itself took fifteen minutes to acquire. Misato felt bad for Rei that her only example of an adult was this doctor, whom wasn't the most sociable person when it came to people younger then herself.

"Look how many kids are up here" Ritsuko noted with displeasing looks "doesn't anyone complain?"

"Yes" Misato said sighing "and you sound a lot like that woman"

Misato was looking around for the maroon R-32 they encountered last time they were here; it wasn't so much she was interested in him. But more or less she judged, he was the go-to person when it came to the affairs of road racers. In lead on an invisible leash, Rei kept good measure staying almost precisely 2 meters in front of the two middle aged women. To everyone else here, the girl looked like bait, if it were for the mother behind her.

Everyone in the road racer area was present during the last race and by now knew who Misato was; Ritsuko and Rei on the other hand seemed to be total strangers to this game.

"Keiichi-san" Misato cheerfully found the owner of the said car; he was talking to what she could guess were the race officials for tonight.

"Ms Katsuragi-san, good to see you again" Keiichi greeted. "So what brings the tofu shop manager here?"

"You know well why" Misato replied in humor "besides, what is a lonely lady like me going to do on a Saturday night?"

They both laughed, while Ritsuko now assumed that Misato had converted from her normal reality to this strange and crazy underground one that didn't seem to notice the legal ramifications of their actions.

"Well, where is Shinji" Keiichi asked

"He said he would be late this time, so we went up my friend's FC"

"An FC?" Sousuke spoke up from behind the group "that white blue FC?"

"Yes" Misato complied "don't worry, I don't have a driver for that, nor do I own the car"

Keiichi nodded and continued to explain to Misato when the race for when Shinji would be tonight. As she and Shinji both separately hoped, there would be one race before their race with Touya.

Misato said her complements to the DK and two or three other road racers whom were giving her body a good look. Misato felt quite comfortable with that, at the same time the irony that this was the result of a diet routine that Shinji enforced on her, despite her whining and bickering. That part she hoped would never spill out in detail yet.

Five hundred meters down the road, at roughly the half way point of the race. Another bunch of people gathered on the side of the road ready to watch the event. Despite her displeasing thoughts on this, even Hikari found it amazing that she was even here. At much presence of Toji; she agreed to watch Shinji's race tonight.

Kazuma and Kensuke both had gone over to the next town in the AE92 to pick up Naoko earlier so she could be here as well. The entire party had been setup and was now ready for Shinji's downhill race.

Kensuke earlier had gone to the shop to give the camera to Misato; at the likeliness she could get Shinji to add the camera again. Kensuke almost glowed from excitement, or stupidity as Toji called it; every time he heard some random comment about Shinji and his AE86. All the comments were good so far, and despite a lot of people's skepticism about the background of this racer, none were willing to question the victory he pulled against Takashi.

"So when is this race meant to start?" Naoko asked as she rummaged through the bags for chips; Kensuke wondered how that girl could eat so much and still be the top athlete at school.

"I'm not sure" Kensuke replied honestly "I'll call Misato"

Kensuke walked off to make his call in semi-private. At the same time, the Karasuyama-2 crime due left Toji and Hikari alone. If there was one thing Naoko was scary for, it was not only that she setup situations for lovers, but then she video tapped them like a stalker would and use it as evidence if they ever denied it. Hikari had grown to feel uncomfortable around her when she learnt this fact.

"Hello, Misato" Kensuke finally got through "do you know when Shinji is suppose to start?"

On the top of the mountain, Misato could hardly hear the kid on the phone, already the first two cars, a red Mazda MX-5 and a blue Nissan SX-180 were lining up and were revving their engines as a war cry.

"I talked to the master of events, he starts after this bunch; so twenty minutes time" Misato then asked the question "is Shinji down there with you?"

"No, I thought he was already here"

Misato felt bothered by that fact, and even more concerned about a 'what if' scenario. She decided to go confirm her worst fear first. She looked around for Keiichi.

"Keiichi-san" Misato found him with Sousuke, who seemed to be trying to look for someone.

"Ms Katsuragi-san?" Keiichi wondered what was going on

"If you started a race and my driver came up at the same time, what chances will there be…"

"practically zero" Keiichi assured her "we have radios and blinker lights at various corners on the track, if a car started coming up, we would inform the drivers by flashing the lights, or make the uphill car pull over"

That insured the problem, Misato then wondered what the problem that occupied both him and Sousuke was.

"Her name is Asisaka, she is Sousuke's younger sister" Keiichi came clean "nobody has seen her since midday, according to Sousuke, she went to see your driver at a shop of some sort"

Misato did the math in her head, and then chanced it that she already knew the answer.

"Don't worry then" Misato then realized the reason for Shinji's strange request before "I'm sure she is in good hands"

* * *

As true to her word, after the first race had concluded, the black Trueno pulled up alongside the road beyond the starting line and looked for a place to turn around. Inside, from what she could tell, Shinji was driving with a smaller female passenger. Misato would have a field day later on toying with Shinji 

"Asisaka!" Sousuke first spoke when she got out of the car, before looking at Shinji who looked like he was lost and embarrassed

"Sorry oni-chan" Asiaka bowed "I took over Shinji's position so he could sleep this afternoon"

Behind the crowd, Ritsuko and Rei watched on as they saw the crowd of racers crowd around the two vehicles, it was the driver she was concerned about, as a doctor, she knew that even if he took several hours to sleep, he lacked the 15 or so minutes of deep sleep he got during a normal night's sleep. Since his body was under an incredible amount of stress in the last week; his ability to retain any sleep was lost.

Shinji probably couldn't have agreed anymore. 4 hours of sleep only made it possible for him to regain control of his body, walk around and do things; but his ability to concentrate was lost within an hour.

"Shinji-kun" Misato joked, "How many girls does this make it? 3? 4?"

This comment sparked a reaction from Sousuke and Keiichi to look at Shinji and Misato in utter shock. Sousuke looked over at his younger sister with greater concern.

"Misato!" Shinji argued "I'd never do that!"

"I know" Misato chuckled, and turned "don't worry guys; this kid wouldn't try anything, he's too scared"

"Hey!" Shinji echoed back his fury to Misato, the argument died quickly after that and the preparations for the race began. Quietly Sousuke brought her sister to the side and asked her simply

"Did he?" Sousuke got a shake of the head by his sister, confirming to him his best hopes. The cars were lined up and the drivers prepped. Shinji felt tired, and promised himself that once this race was over, he was going home. Misato confirmed that and said she would be going home in Ritsuko's FC. Meanwhile, Touya was concentrating close to the conversation with Takashi.

"Listen, don't underestimate this runt, he beat me with something I haven't even figured out yet"

"I don't think I have to worry about that tonight" Touya commented. Takashi and Yuki both spluttered angry looks, thinking their friend was still too proud.

"He has skill, ill admit" Touya commented "but he doesn't have the stamina we road racers have"

"What?" Yuki asked

"We road racers have learnt how to concentrate on the road and how to use our minds, prepare our daily schedule around a race" Touya gazed over at Shinji who was eating a quick snack given to him by Misato "Shinji is still in high school, and add that he has a job in the early morning, he has already spent most of the energy for his concentration on his school and job"

"That made no difference to me!" Takashi rebutted

"There is one difference" Touya spoke "notice his stamina?"

Yuki took a closer look and nodded in agreement; only a road racer could tell if someone was loosing sleep, there were certain signs to look for, it was hard to define them, they weren't seen, just felt.

"Sleep depriving stress" Yuki commented before changing his tone "but what if he falls asleep while driving, shouldn't we abort then?"

"No" Touya said "if he wanted out, he'd have told me yesterday, once committed, you must fight"

The further minutes only made Shinji more nervous as he was standing by the car waiting. Misato installed the camera and it was rolling, he was as ready, but his nerves were telling him to go to bed.

"Road is clear" Keiichi yelled "ready for battle"

Both drives nodded and made formal introductions

"Touya" he spoke in a low threatening voice

"Shinji" replied with an equally low tone, wanting to show that he wasn't afraid. Shinji got into his black Trueno and started the engine and sat back. His mind was at one, it was do or nothing.

"10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1….GO!"

At once both Touya's Blue Siliva and Shinji's black Trueno floored it on the spot and catapulted forwards with charging speed down the straightway. Shinji focused hard straight away, he needed to push his mind at his fullest to try combat the first turns of the course, the turns he was incapable of perfecting.

The corner came up ahead, the crowds were on both the inside and outside track, Shinji decided that attacking this corner with the aggression that he did earlier in the week might cause damage to spectators, so he reduced his speed. Touya noticed this and made the advantage to get out of the neck and neck and get in front of the Trueno.

The corner came, despite the speed that Shinji was going at; his corner almost grazed a dent in the guardrail. Shinji blinked a few times, he wanted to race like in that dream, he was fast and on track.

'Your not going to win' Shinji heard the low voice of someone, he swore was thinking of his dream then. Shinji shook his head and focused again on the hairpin ahead. The race wasn't anything yet, but the S13 had already broken some pace distance from the 86.

'When I was your age Ikari, I didn't play with the big boys unless I knew how to win' Touya thought to himself 'your not like me though, your foolish instead' Touya smiled as he hit the brakes and spun his wheels to drift right around the corner. His Blue Nissan performed the drift almost perfectly, the drift placed him close to the crowd on his exit, but he was confident that he could beat this brat on a bike.

The Trueno followed behind, with almost identical drifting integrity, slower. Shinji was concentrating too much about his corners and the crowd to worry about his speed

'You're a child Shinji' the voice echoed again. Shinji swear it was nearby; then he saw it in the crowd, he saw him. His eyes couldn't look that far normally, but at the head of the next corner, Shinji saw him. Gendo Ikari.

'Impossible' Shinji thought' his mind froze for a second, then he relapsed and he saw what he could only panic to. Shinji's approach time was off by that critical second and his mind snapped instantly to turn the car around the corner as best he could, his drift was crazily performed but it managed to turn the Trueno around the corner at the right time; with the cost of the paint job on the back left corner of his car. He heard the smashing noise as the light bulbs were impacted against the iron guardrails.

His focus twitched again as he attempted to regain focus. As he tried to get his rhythm in place again, he found the Siliva, it was further ahead then before, thanks to Shinji's mental stall. He had it, he needed to forget it and floor it; at once Shinji accelerated as fast as he could, shifting up to fifth gear on the straightway,

'Your going to lose' the voice echoed again 'and your going to run away like the child you are'

'No' Shinji saw it again, this time, there wasn't one Gendo, the whole gallery was Gendo. The man wearing a black coat and glasses with a reflection that made you wonder how much he cared. What was Shinji thinking? He tried to focus off the presence of Gendo again. Then the corner came, Shinji knew it this time and focused on it, no lapse in time, just this time, he was coming in faster then needed.

'Die Shinji…." The echo boomed, Shinji screamed and turned the wheel, and used the brakes. He downshifted and then turned the car, took one wide swing and for a moment almost lost control of its own momentum forwards. Shinji set himself up again, his mind was nuts, he couldn't even concentrate properly anymore; he was loosing a battle against himself. It wasn't even about Touya anymore, it was about his father; he had to beat his father.

Shinji didn't care for his life before, and he most certainly now was starting to revert such feelings, as he accelerated down the straightway, now doing his best to ignore the chants of an evil and sinister rhythm. His body was pushing out all it could to defeat his mind. His nightmare was now breaking beyond the frontier between sleep and his real life, it was the final battle, and Shinji had run away so much in his dream, it was time to not be defeated.

The back Trueno screeched around the hairpin with speed as it virtually drifted around like it was on a set of tracks, Shinji was furious now, at his mind for triggering this. He wanted to defeat it thought, but the faster he went, the louder it got. Shinji pushed on in his marathon battle to defeat his father, whom now consumed the body of Touya and was now driving the Blue Siliva

'You'll never defeat me, you child' his taunt echoed in his mind 'you'll never defeat anyone'

Shinji responded in kind, by pushing his car faster around the next corner, his mind was completely dead of concentration; whatever he was focusing on wasn't the race. Shinji pushed the gears down on the corner and kicked his brakes with panic as his speed again was faster then the cornering allowed, but Shinji was determined to beat that with a sharp and power drift. He did so continuously, but already now both rear headlights were damaged Shinji's Trueno was showing some impressive scratch marks on the front and back of his car.

* * *

"He's doing what?" Misato replied the man over the radio "both sides?" 

Misato had heard this since the first time Shinji scratched the car. She wasn't all that worried about the car thought, what was Shinji doing? He wasn't falling asleep was he?

"Its stress induced hallucinations" Ritsuko spoke up, gaining the attention of other road racers around Misato

"What?" Misato asked

"If Shinji were falling asleep, he would've crashed by now or his pace would've slowed down at this point" Ritsuko replied. Keiichi and Sousuke both nodded and found themselves confused too. Ritsuko noted them and expanded her gaze to include the two road racers.

"That doesn't make sense, he is going faster, if he were having hallucinations, he means he has lost concentration" Sousuke explained

"In cases were the driver hasn't sleep for a while and isn't properly ready for a race, that's true" Ritsuko noted "but at the moment, Shinji is using his concentration to fight off his hallucinations. Leaving him to race on nothing but his skills and knowledge of the course"

"That's crazy" Misato spoke

"That's possible" Keiichi spoke "but that theory works if he wasn't at racing pace"

"But Shinji hasn't got a choice" Ritsuko spoke "a hallucination might mislead him to turn left instead of right. His concentration can't contradict that, but his memory of the course will, and Shinji will be wise enough to pick the latter of his mind's opinion"

"But then what happens if he runs out of concentration" Sousuke said

"At the moment, his concentration is fighting off his hallucinations, but even that can't last forever, and when it does, he won't have much in the way of defense for his memory. His hallucinations will push him to mislead the path he is going and make him pick a fatal line instead of the best one"

"But one thing I don't get" Keiichi spoke "even if he had his concentration, his memory of the course is only able to keep up with him for a certain pace; in fact he hasn't slowed down, he needs to fight that and keep real-time updating of where he is"

"That's because whatever Shinji is fighting in his hallucinations is also racing him" Ritsuko look down the straightway "tonight he is battling someone else in that Siliva"

"But that's Touya driving, what or who else is he racing?"

* * *

Shinji wasn't ready to quit yet, his mind was more determined now, up ahead was the straightway midpoint and there started the most familiar part of the course for Shinji. He smiled as he started speeding up, Touya was 3 seconds ahead of him, but Shinji didn't see Touya in the seat, he saw someone else he wanted to beat. 

Shinji was determined to not leave his father to outrun him in this car. He took the next corner with tight ease and pushed his limits further then before. Shinji didn't want to lose now, he had to gone too far now to just retreat and let this man that haunted his life for years just step all over him again.

Shinji took the next corner tightly as he braked and accelerated out of his drift with crazy speed, his concern for hitting the outer guard rail was replace now about his fear of hitting the inner guardrail. Shinji had already scraped his right side and his left indicator light was now broken.

Shinji had his eyes fixated on the 4 red dots that made up the Siliva's brake lights on every straightway, the driver disturbingly visible the mirror angle. Gendo was there now; he was smiling back at Shinji in the manner of taunting him to surrender.

'no I wont you bastard' Shinji saw the Siliva disappear around the corner, only to be met two seconds later with the Trueno hot on his tail again.

'The kid is catching up?' Touya saw behind him that the black Trueno was slowly catching up, he had thought the two dings he had done in the first few corners would've scared Shinji to retreat and slow down, but whatever he was thinking made him go even faster.

Inside the car, Shinji was fighting his body to stay focused on the road, he couldn't stand it now, and his concentration fighting off his father's chants were failing as his ability to ignore was slowly being degraded. Shinji knew that if he was going to defeat him, he had to defeat this first. The bastard wasn't going to mislead him.

'Just focus on the red dots' Shinji did so, they were the only things he could do now, his mind wasn't trusted enough to its memory of the course, he just trusted his timing around corners. If he could keep the taillights in his sight, he could beat him.

Shinji reduced his gap from 2 seconds to just behind Touya, Shinji wasn't trying anything though, when those red lights flash, he braked, when the sped off, he caught up. When he saw them move left or right, he moved left or right. His eyes focused on the car ahead, it was the only thing he could use to beat.

'I've got to beat this bastard' Shinji kept saying 'tell me to run away? I wont run away from you bastard!' Shinji kept saying as he continued to take the next corner, he his hand yanked the gear stick back to second and throttled it to first; then reserved the pattern when he catapulted out of a corner. Ahead of Shinji, Touya was now starting to be afraid of Shinji's pattern, he was literally on his back, and he was staying tighter then he could handle, Touya pushed his pacing faster, only to be matched by Shinji by the next corner.

'Was he pretending to fail before?' Touya asked himself 'did he ding his car on purpose to make me think he was bad?' Touya throttled into 4th gear and accelerated down the hill with the Trueno following dangerously close.

'it's time to end this you bastard' Shinji swore again as he saw his opening in the straightway, he stopped focusing his eyes on the brake lights of his competitor and swung a bit to the left, Shinji looked to the road for the first time since he started staring at the skyline's rear.

Touya saw Shinji starting to make his move, and saw the corner ahead. Shinji wanted to take him from the inside, bad thing to do considering his positioning on the course. The entire setup Shinji had been looking for was dangerous though. Shinji felt his opening and started accelerating down until he was neck and neck with this monster that only pleased him with death of others. Shinji was borderline crazy, well maybe not that, but he was now at a point where his life depended on sanity remaining.

The crowd saw the whole thing, the inside corner was on Shinji's side; the Trueno started to drift on the relatively wide corner and gained the lead, but for only a moment. Touya's belated attack pushed him to overtake him from the inside, he had to time perfectly his run, but he did it. The Trueno's drift opened a gap large enough for his blue Siliva to explode out of the corner and use the time the Trueno recovered from is cornering drift to cut in. Touya retained the lead and took his entire engine's might to snag ahead before the Tureno had a chance to speed up.

Shinji was furious with himself for not being able to protect his short lived lead. That bastard Gendo was back in the lead…yes, its Gendo in the seat, not some jock who thinks you can't drive; it's the bastard father who thinks you can't exist. Shinji knew now he couldn't just give up. He had to win; his objective wasn't to let this bastard win.

Shinji managed to catch himself dangerously close to his opponent's tail and readied to take him over. Shinji pulled to the left and made his attack for the outside, up ahead was an S corner set with a hairpin. He had to attack this man called his father. Shinji accelerated his car and belated trying his attack until the corner.

Touya knew he was going to take the attack and try cut his drift off, he was going to try again from the outside. Shinji refused to believe in defeat now, die or not, he did not want to lose.

'GO' Shinji braked right on the mark and pushed his Trueno into the corner turn, at that moment, Shinji saw the headlights of the Siliva pass from behind him to his left side and saw the Siliva start to turn into a drift line, it pushed Shinji closer to the line and closer to the outer gutter, Shinji however still nosed his car over the point where the gap between the inner gutter and the Trueno made it impossible for the Siliva to overpass, however his counter drift was needed and this is where Shinji's ploy failed.

At the moment his Trueno gained forward space on the middle of the road, the Siliva straighten out to the right of the Trueno and on the inside edge of the next corner, the Trueno's counter drift swung mere few inches from the bonnet of the blue Nissan; Sending a chilling message to Touya that Shinji was serious.

Shinji's drift was fantastic if it wasn't for the wide turn line and the Siliva has already marked time and blocked Shinji being able to stop the Siliva from gaining the corner. The angle let off at the end of the curve and the cars were neck and neck. Shinji knew that the next hairpin was tight and the Siliva would just take the corner from the outside and block Shinji's inside track and then nose ahead.

Shinji had to pull his run now or never, the finish line was too close ahead to not pull it now, Shinji accelerated faster and prepared for the corner swing. Touya made no apology for keeping dead on his tail, he was now seeing the broken headlights of the black Trueno now, he refused to believe if but the 'runt' was beating him. But then his next move to block Shinji was interrupted by the Trueno's unexplained turning, Touya couldn't understand it, but Shinji was breaking around the corner with no drift at a higher speed. But he could see what he was doing; he was still fast enough to drift and keep the Trueno in sight.

'Hooking the gutter?' is that your little trick, 'well….' Touya fronted his car on the straightway and speed faster towards the final corner, Shinji saw what he was attempting, but guessed wrongly. Shinji took the dive for the corner and made himself ready to…Shinji jerked himself when the Siliva turned outwards for the outer edge of the corner, only to have him doubt back and; Shinji blinked and realized the trick that the bastard was going to do, the bastard that was Gendo wanted to beat him with. Shinji wasn't out of ideas yet and risked everything,

"Shit!" Touya saw it happen. He had taken the inner corner of the track and blocked Shinji from hooking the gutter at the start of the hairpin, but Shinji had drifted till he was half in front, then sped right in front of his Siliva, with some sort of fate in the balance, he forced Touya to panic break, Shinji then used the advantage of the open to impulsively duck for the gutter at the halfway point, the wheels hooked, barely and rode him to the end of the hairpin.

It was as simple as the overtaking on the last three corners, but Shinji was crazy to pull it off in front on the outside edge of the car instead of behind it from the inside. It wasn't a simple block; it was a dive for the gutter, if the Siliva didn't brake, the Nissan would've slammed direct on the driver side and most likely roll the car off the corner and into the gallery.

Touya's heart was healthy, but nothing was expecting him to see this. It wasn't a block; he took him out and started the gutter run, during the corner. Inside the Trueno, Shinji saw ahead the finish line, he could stop it now, he high the accelerator hard and fast, he kept kicked it, and he kept screaming it. Looking ahead at the invisible barrier that separated him between now and victory; he didn't flinch.

Touya did everything he could but it was useless; his near miss brake stalled him from taking a neck to neck, he lost a full second. He kept hitting the accelerator, but the tip of his car's bonnet could only nose ahead of his destroyed rear lights when Shinji past the finish line.

* * *

Shinji took a good five hundred meters to slow down and turn around. He slowly drove up to the parking lot and closed his eyes. His adrenaline was now there, the last five minutes when his dream invaded his life; it was like the moment he past the line the voices and his father disappeared. What just happened? He couldn't figure out; when he past the line, did he really beat his father? 

Shinji was feeling sick now, so it was no surprise when he stopped, he ran out of the car and located the nearest bush to throw up behind. Touya had already stopped and was waiting for him when he saw Shinji stop abruptly and run in the direction of the bushes. Naturally, he followed, cautiously.

It took a decent five minutes before Shinji was dry enough to speak again. When he was he got up and coughed up remaining parts of whatever was in his stomach. Shinji searched his mind again for an answer to his questions. Shinji didn't have to walk far when he saw that Touya had followed him as far as to his own car.

"If you need, I can call the doctor" Touya spoke

"I'm alright" Shinji lied, he felt something like he was lighter. He thought about his answer for a moment, and then he realized what the meaning of tonight was.

"Well, I guess I owe you and Takashi an apology" Touya said "I don't know what inspired you but that took some guts"

"I just didn't want to lose tonight" Shinji said "I had to beat myself tonight"

"Huh?" Touya didn't understand "you beat yourself?"

"Never mind" Shinji spoke "it's a hard thing to say, but thanks for helping me"

"Sure you don't want to see a doctor?"

* * *

Some twenty minutes past and Misato, Shinji and company had left the scene; Misato driving now exhausted Shinji who was no longer awake. Takashi came down with Yuki, thinking that Touya was pissed. Instead when the found him, he was in his car thinking. 

"It was strange, I thought he was dazed in his sleep, but he never left my tail after the halfway mark" Touya explained to Takashi "but whatever he was pushing for, he must've wanted the victory pretty badly, because he told me that he was battling himself"

Yuki and Takashi gave him confusing looks,

"One things for sure, he is still quite something" Takashi looked back up the mountain "give him time and we'll see some amazing things on this mountain"

* * *

A/N and ten hours ago i was thinking of skipping this week. sorry ppl if the quality isnt as good. 2 more weeks till summer break, then ill be able concerntate on this better, so while i cant promise a chapter next time, i will try. 

anyway, as per usual, read then review.

P.S for you asuka fans, dont worry, she's coming...later.


	10. Episode 09: Aftermath

After Evangelion

Episode 9: Aftermath

Shinji awoke with murmur; if it wasn't for the flicker of light that usually came through the side of the curtains, Shinji probably wouldn't have noticed it was late morning. For the first few minutes since his mind left the land of subconscious thoughts; he felt the most relieved in a month. Slowly his body regained function and at the same time, so did his thinking and awareness of his surroundings and problems.

He closed his eyes to think; he had realized it was morning and he didn't have a single nightmare, or for that matter a dream at all. It was then he realized all that had happened; it was like his whole mind was flashed by as fast as the race last night and he couldn't think straight anymore. Shinji started to recall the event slowly from when he woke up on the couch where Asisaka was standing over him to when he fell asleep in the passenger seat as Misato congratulated him on winning.

Shinji opened his eyes again, this time fully aware that it was morning; he turned over and found himself facing the couch back; how come he didn't realize this before? Shinji pondered his surroundings for a moment; confirming that nothing was similar to the view he got from his bedroom. Before his questioning dragged on, his mind gazed at the clock on the wall; 7:30am.

"You're awake finally" spoke the voice of someone from his left "good morning Shinji"

'Wha?' Shinji sat up slowly, and panned the room before he could find the source of the voice. Shinji regained his footing and stood up. He felt so loose that it took himself a few minutes to regain balance and focus. Shinji then sprung to action when he realized the odd thing out. 'Misato' Shinji jolted his eyes open and started walking to the stairs.

Before Shinji could think straight, he heard the distinct noise of a knife chopping something. Shinji assumed that it was Misato or Ritsuko, that being the logical probability. Shinji walked into the kitchen however and found Rei instead chopping up toast.

"Good Morning Shinji-kun"

"Good Morning…" Shinji said tiredly

"Ms Katagursi went out this morning to do the delivery for you" Rei explained without asking

"And Ritsuko?"

"She is sleeping still" Rei said finishing preparing breakfast "here"

Rei gave Shinji a plate of two pieces of toast and an apple on it; a strange breakfast, none the less he was grateful for it. Both the teenagers sat down at the table and slowly ate their toast. For a few minutes it was calm again, nether wanted to spoil the morning by talking, yet Rei had a few questions on her mind. After a few minutes however, her mind overpowered her will to remain quiet for any longer.

"Shinji…how are you…feeling?" Rei asked the question slowly

"I'm fine" Shinji replied, not catching the tone of her voice "I have a bit of a headache, but I'll be fine"

"I see…" Rei replied "…did you have another nightmare?"

Shinji didn't think about that since he got up, and it was only when he thought about did he realize the difference, he didn't have a nightmare at all, for the first time in a while, he didn't have nightmare. In fact he slept without any dream; it felt strange though. But it did mean something, he had overcome his problem; he was free again.

Shinji pondered what he would do today. He of course had worked to do and the first thing he would do was get the boss to hire Asisaka. He would get hell from the boss finding out about kensuke and Shinji both being off duty, but he felt that Asisaka now deserved the position more then him anyway, he owed her more then she would know. The next thing he would have to deal with would be his friends as they boasted their own share of the victory Shinji had over Touya the previous evening.

Before Shinji could even decide what to do next, both the teenagers heard the noise of someone waking up and not caring who knew. Rei quietly acknowledged this and returned to the kitchen to make her breakfast. Followed by the slide of the door from Misato's room, Risukto walked into the living room.

"Morning Rei" Ritsuko yawned, not aware that Shinji was at the table instead. She didn't take any pride in her appearance first thing in the morning, only wearing a robe and under garments, not even bothering to tie it up. Ritsuko didn't realize until she tried to pull the chair out that Shinji was even there.

"What are you doing here?" she immediately demanded,

"I just woke up too" Shinji admitted honestly "Misato went to do the delivery this morning it seems"

Ritsuko ignored the comment and took the seat that was occupied by Rei just before. She remembered to tie up her robe before sitting down. They looked at each other judging until the older woman broke the silence.

"So how are you doing this morning?" Ritsuko enquired. Shinji didn't know himself, he'd just gotten up and just...but he didn't feel like he was ill or anything, instead he felt lighter since last night, his body was actually feeling normal for the first time in a few weeks. But what did that mean?

"I don't know yet" Shinji said "I feel lighter thou"

Ritsuko sighed quietly before asking the next question.

"So you finally defeated your nightmare?"

"Huh?" Shinji was caught off guard by the comment. Before Shinji could ask, Rei entered the room holding a plate for; Shinji looked on as Risikto took her plate and started eating.

"So where is Misato anyway?" Ritsuko looked over, and took notice immediately that the keys for the Trueno were still on the coffee table in the living room. Before Ritsuko could ask the question, Rei replied.

"Because the lights are broken on the Trueno, Mr katasugi-san considers her car as un-road-worthy; so she took the liberty of using your car for the delivery this morning"

"That damn woman…" Ritsuko swore under her breath, Shinji just looked on, not admitting how humorous it was too him. "What gives her the right to allow her to decide things like that?"

Rei returned to sit next to Ritsuko and resumed eating her meal. The conversation died for another minute before she decided to attack Shinji again.

"So what do you plan to do now?" Ritsuko asked "in relations to racing?"

"That was the last race I had to do, so I won't do anymore races" Shinji said "they were annoying"

Ritsuko was shocked to learn that, for a while she assumed that Shinji was actually all for the races. But now it seemed to be contradict now that she had seen him race firsthand. She or Misato hadn't seen the video yet, or were even aware of it. Shinji had hidden the camera when he parked at the end of the race. Somehow he instinctively felt that it was best for everyone that nobody saw the image of him screaming like an insane manic at nothing.

He was sure that he had spoken to himself; and he didn't want to receive strange looks from Ritsuko or worried looks from Misato.

"Just stop?" Ritsuko pondered aloud "but you won two races"

"Weren't you against the idea last week?"

"I was, until I saw the race; now I'm curious" Ritsuko finished her toast before speaking again "from what I've learnt, you were having nightmares until that race, you drove barely awake, and yet you won"

"I don't see what you mean"

"Nevermind" she sighed in defeat "but I'm curious now"

Shinji nodded and got up. He looked up at the clock and realized he had to get ready for work. As he walked off to the bathroom, Ritsuko finished her large breakfast of pancakes and toast and got up. Feeling heavier now that she was full, she decided to exercise her mind. By all rights, she knew that his concentration would've been on the line last night, and the possibility that he was having hallucinations made her think.

If there was a video like Misato said, she would have to see it, but most likely, the video camera was back in the hands of that friend of his. But first she needed to get her car back.

* * *

Location: _Family's_, highway route 26, Tochigi Prefecture 

Time: 9:00hrs

Date: September 24th, 2017

"I still can't believe it" Takashi spoke "you of all people were beaten by a kid"

"Give me a break; it Isn't like I was playing on fair ground"

"Fair ground?" Takashi pointed out "you were awake, he was barely able to keep balance"

The trio of men who all came from Utsunomyia-1 were having breakfast in the manner of all road racers that traveled around, at highway restaurants. They had stayed overnight at one of the few hot spring hotels on Mt Kira and were now heading back home to their day jobs. Neither of them had managed to escape the thought of Shinji beating both of the road racers at the table.

"Well, lets face it" Yuki spoke up "that kid isn't normal. He's been driving for 18 months every day, despite the fact it was against the law"

"That Misato woman" Takashi spoke up "she ready picked up a really good driver"

"Didn't you hear?" Touya explained "I thought you knew they live with each other"

"Shinji is her son?!" he did the mathematics of Shinji's age and Misato's 'age' for a moment he was fooled to believe that was true.

"Doesn't matter you two" Yuki finished "I think Misato made it clear that he wasn't going to race anymore anyway"

"He isn't?" both of the drivers spoke

"I had a talk with that mechanic that was hanging around Misato before we left" he explained "apparently some deal was made between her and Shinji that he'd just battle you two and then stop"

"A shame" someone else spoke from the next booth over. The three men all turned to the direction of the voice. Sitting in the next booth was another person on his own, he was about their age and maybe a little older then them. He continued,

"Just cause you both underestimated him, doesn't mean he is unbeatable"

"Your name?" Takashi invited the man to sit with them. "I remember your face; you were at the start line"

"Ryosuke" he replied "I just moved into the district and I wanted to see what the competition was like"

Ryosuke sat down and looked at the drivers that so far were beaten by the black Trueno of Karasuyama-2. He didn't spot a glace at Yuki next to him, but concentrated his glare on the other two.

"And what remains a surprise is that a high school kid beat you"

"That is no ordinary high school kid" both drivers defended themselves "the race last night proves that Shinji is a capable driver; even the local drift king agrees, he seems to be paying attention to him now"

"Oh really?" Ryosuke spoke "don't you think that he is a little suspicious?"

"No" both drivers replied "What are you implying?"

"Think about it, even with 18 months experience, his skills appear to be kind of too well developed for that period of time" Ryosuke then smirked "don't worry, at the meet in three weeks time, ill mop his head on the asphalt, then ill expose him for who he really is"

"Your not going to actually challenge him are you?" both of the drivers said "he has already committed to never race again"

"I don't think so" Ryosuke "ill make him want to battle me"

* * *

Location: Sousuke's repair shop, Karasuyama-2 

Time: 11:30hrs

Date: September 24th, 2017

Misato drove the black Trueno down the street that Sousuke claimed to have a shop setup, and surely enough found the place without any difficulty, behind her, Ritsuko was driving her Blue and white FC behind her friend, she would need to drive her back. The establishment didn't look as bad as Ritsuko had imagined. It was a clean lot with two garage bays, an office and what seemed to be a house behind the building. Sousuke met the two women and drove the Trueno into the spare parking bay in his garage. In other bay a car was covered up with a blanket.

Ritsuko didn't take much notice of and followed the young man into his office. She had taken one look at the office and wondered if Sousuke was a mechanic or an anime manic. His desk and two glass cased shelf's had some rather 'interesting' figurines of girls as well as models of various cars and engines. Misato was able to overlook his tastes and be quite impressed that for such a young age, Sousuke was operating this shop by himself. After the paperwork had been established, they got down to the real business,

"So he wants out of racing?" Sousuke asked

"That's what I heard from him this morning" Ritsuko confirmed for both Misato and Sousuke. The former was slightly perturbed that she didn't get to learn of this from Shinji himself. The latter however sighed before he continued

"I'm afraid that's going to be a little hard"

"What do you mean?" Misato enquired

"word spreads fast, by now; road racers in Gunma will learn that there is a 17 year old prodigy road racer out there, and has beaten two people" Sousuke explained "people are going to want to race him now"

"It's going to be hard to get convince him to race anyone again you know" Ritsuko said 'Maybe I could get Rei to go in his place if he doesn't want to'

"Well, if I were you, id give him some time, road racers at first are hesitant in taking on new challengers"

Both women nodded in agreement; somehow the whole concept of drift battles mirrored angel battles. You couldn't decide when they happened, you just did them; and you couldn't run away in most cases. Plus a few other factors, it felt like that Shinji was suited to this better, just on the basis that he was an Evangelion pilot prior to this.

"well, even if returns to the fight" Sousuke continued "I don't think he could just continue repeating these miracles like that, so far every battle has been pretty close to relying on just luck"

"The one thing we know at least is, he has the skill" Misato debated

"but we cant help but say that he was lucky last night; I don't know what divine force helped him, but its nothing less then a miracle" Sousuke announced his conclusion "he was, according to you, half asleep, how could he even concentrate, or even fight off falling asleep?

"The mental challenge of a drift battle is stranger then I first thought then" Ritsuko admitted

"It is; the need to learn how to lag out the concentration is almost like a science" Sousuke, making Misato silently chucking at Ritsuko. Until now, she had taken no interest in the concept of road racers, but once she saw up close the complexity involved, it really opened her eyes; and the strange parallels it had with certain parts of her old research made her wonder to a degree what lengths it could be used for something other then road racing.

"Shinji has only started to race" Misato concluded "he'll have a long way to go before he can really be considered a force that these people in Gunma think he is"

Sousuke nodded in agreement before getting up and escorting them to the door.

"Well, your Tureno will be in the shop for a few days" Sousuke said, worried that he might have to let them borrow the car under the blanket cover "do you have another car to drive until then?"

"Yes" Misato replied; looking at Ritsuko. After Misato's return to the shop in the morning, both of them had a quick lashing argument about the rights of property versus the need to earn a share to stay under the roof. Ritsuko was flat broke and her promise of Kozo Fuyutsuki giving her a sum of money to set herself back on her own; therefore until she could a place of her own, she couldn't do anything but work for Misato and agree.

"Very well" Sousuke nodded in agreement "I suppose it would be a good idea to see if he can handle a rotary"

Misato and Risikuto left the shop confused by that comment and drove off towards cherry blossom avenue. While Misato didn't know it yet, another scheme was brewing in Risiktou's mind. Suddenly she had forgotten the conversation that she had with Shinji about forgiving him for the race. Now she had the opposite feelings and wanted to send him to try out something.

* * *

Location: Mecha Gamers, Karasuyama-2 

Time: 14:53hrs

Date: September 24th, 2017

Shinji was quite amazed that he got to keep his job, especially after the boss learnt of the events yesterday, even thought he was a normally dismissive boss of his employee's actions. He didn't like to learn that the store was manned by nobody on his staff, instead by someone who wasn't even confirmed to get the job. Both Shinji and Kensuke were now completely aware of their actions, and although it got Asisaka hired, they might loose their jobs.

Fortunately however, the boss didn't want to loose two employees for just one, and thus he was forced to keep Shinji and Kensuke in their positions for as long as they never repeated this again. Kensuke and Shinji both agreed that for now on, the store had to have one employee at all times, and if Shinji was racing, Kensuke couldn't go off and prepare, he had to be on station.

If had been a pretty strange morning for Shinji, first the weird talk between him and Ritsuko and now the calm after the storm business for the race. Shinji gave him the video camera back with the promise to have the video copied and in DVD format by the first bell tomorrow for school. He had almost forgotten it before he left, given that he had hidden the video camera before, he had to retrieve it before either Misato or Ritsuko had found out about the camera.

Now the gang were visiting, Toji and Kazama that was, Hikari and Naoko had gone off to buy something a few stores down; both weren't interested in the race. Shinji had to explain in the best detail he could remember, and then he announced his intentions for now;

"You can't quit now!" Kenesuke debated

"I didn't say ill stop completely" Shinji replied, "I want to take some time to figure out what I want to do"

"What is there to think about?" Toji spoke "your great now!"

"I know I can race" Shinji replied "but I don't want to get into a situation where I'm like I was yesterday, I was lucky that I got out alive"

Shinji had promised to make it up to Asisaka at some point to thank her for vital contribution. She hadn't decided yet; but it was okay with him, they'd have plenty of time to actually talk now she was an employee.

"Well, if you want my advice" Kazama spoke up "I wouldn't wait around long, people are going to want to fight you now, if you think the two from Utsunomyia-1 are only ones that want to beat you, your wrong now"

"but I have work to do, and I'm not skilled enough" Shinji replied "if there is going to be another race, I'm going to have to improve myself, what if they get a driver and a car that I can't possibly beat?"

"What are you talking about, you beat both a Sileighty and a Silva, and I think you can handle it"

"Still" Shinji continued "I want to get better before I go up against anyone, but I can't do that now"

"You're kidding yourself" Kenesuke said "you have the backing of Misato don't you?"

"I doubt it" Shinji said "after she gets the repair bill for the Trueno? She'll pull me out of the competition, even if I wanted to continue"

"Well, let's see what she says after we see the video" Kenesuke finished. Shinji saw off the Toji and Kazama. once he returned, Kensuke decided to have his late lunch now, leaving only Asisaka and Shinji at the counter. This gave both of them a chance to talk about what happened.

"So are you ready going to quit?" she spoke

"Probably not" Shinji said "your brother is probably going to tell me that everyone will want to challenge me now"

"That's true" she replied "the road racer community spreads news fast"

"You know a lot about it" Shinji complemented. Asisaka smiled and blushed at the same time.

"I use to go to all the races my older brother competed in" she replied,

"He raced?"

"A while ago, but he gave up" Asisaka replied, "he said he was getting too old anyway, but I don't believe that"

'Sousuke use to race?' Shinji though to himself 'it would make sense'

Asisaka explained 'briefly' about his racing career, even about the time he could've become a professional. Sousuke drove a Dark Blue Mazda MX-5, and for the local drifter community, he was pretty good; at least that's how she believed it. However his father had put an end to him racing, when he stopped funding for the expenses of repairing and maintaining his son's sports car. It was then he decided to become a mechanic and since had worked towards that, eventually and recently achieving ownership of his own shop.

It had amazed Shinji that Asisaka was profoundly interested in the underground world of drift battles; which made sense to her listening intently to when he was talking with the guys before about the race. To Shinji, he was amazed and thought more about the possibilities that he could take up. If he could; could he do the same as Sousuke almost did?

"Im back" Kenesuke said "what you two talking about?"

"Nothing!" Asisaka covered up herself and gave him the wrong impression"

'Jeez Shinji, write a book already' Kenesuke sighed 'I want to know your secret'

Before long, they had noticed that the time was coming to close the store up. The three of them did as so and proceeded to their separate ways. It gave Shinji some insight to what they could be capable of, and at the same time, he wondered about his future in racing. He wasn't there yet, he had to practice first, and he had to get better at driving his Trueno.

* * *

Location: Katsuragi Tofu Shop, Karasuyama-2 

Time: 18:30hrs

Date: September 24th, 2017

The walk home had been a quiet one; he didn't have the characteristic problems in his head annoying him. For now, his life had only half the troubles it usually dealt with. He didn't even fear the pending talk about the damage to the Trueno. Shinji would argue that she had once quoted permission for him to drive recklessly. Apart from that, there would be the pending debate about his future in racing. If Misato wanted to stop him on the basis of car damage, that'd make sense to give him some time to return some normality to his life.

Misato might fight with him about announcing his plans to Ritsuko before her, or further towards the concept of him quitting. But in contrast, he hoped that he would be given some time off from the pressure of upcoming battles. He needed to consider everything from today and the previous night. If he was to have a future in this, he needed to learn and improve his technique; otherwise, there wouldn't be anything he could do if he came up against a better opponent then the locals. As Kenesuke said; people all over now knew of Karasuyama-2's AE86.

Shinji came within sight of home; the first thing he noticed was the absence of the Black Trueno, it was present neither in the driveway nor out front of the shop. He guessed correctly that Misato would've taken it to the shop by now for repairs, he didn't know who, but probably the distant friend of Misato's over in Utsunomyia-1 or something. It then came to wonder what Shinji would do for deliveries. Shinji guessed that Misato might continue to steal the FC until the Trueno was back.

He walked into back door to hearing Misato and Ritsuko going on upstairs. He gulped and continued on to walk up the stairs. He assumed it was over the FC going missing this morning, but it seemed out of the ordinary that argument was taking place now. Then he assumed it was over the battle itself. But Ritsuko's behavior this morning didn't imply she was against drifting anymore. Shinji shrugged it off and walked upstairs,

"…that's the craziest thing I've ever heard in my life" Misato returned at Ritsuko

"I'm home" Shinji spoke, Misato changed her attitude and smiled

"Welcome back Shinji"

Shinji misread that smile for that of a person about to strangle him, presumably over a expensive car bill. Shinji stunted backwards towards his room; Misato flinched her eyebrow up for a second wondering what he was worried about. Had he heard the whole argument from downstairs?

"So what's going to happen with the deliveries?" Shinji said, "Don't you have to start loading the car?"

"Shinji can you sit down for a moment?" Misato asked

"Sure" Shinji said, he sat down on the arm of the chair in the living room and faced the two adults at the table. He decided that he should just apologies before he was overblown by Misato's ranting. However, when he looked up to face Misato again, it didn't appear as if she was angry about the damage to the company car.

"Before you say sorry" Misato said "get this clear in your mind mister, I am not blaming you for the damage on the car; I was expecting that to happen"

Shinji nodded in reply, not expecting his 'mother' to be that understanding. That made Shinji feel less comfortable about his surroundings; it made him wonder if he really should've been slow on his return to home. He quietly noticed that Rei was absent from the room, most likely told to hide in a closet or his room, or anywhere that would restrain her from witnessing him being slaughtered.

"First, I want to know a few things however" Misato said "like are you really quitting?"

"I haven't really decided about what I want to do" Shinji replied "if I can continue driving, ill have to practice more first"

"But you were great last night; you proved it wasn't a fluke you won"

"No, there is need to improve" Shinji confirmed his intentions clearly, "last night was a result of mere luck, if I'm going to race people, I need to improve my technique"

Misato was stunned to hear that, but made no reply for it. Inside herself; she was amazed to see how Shinji had already identified that aspect of his ability and that he needed to improve before he could claim. Misato instead focused her attention on the debate that actually took place.

"Because we don't have a car at the moment, you will have to drive Ritsuko's car until the end of the week, however, the doctor here won't allow it unless you do something for her"

"Which is?"

"I want you to teach Rei to drift" Ritsuko spoke

The room was silent for a minute. Shinji was trying to deny hat he heard that from Ritsuko's mouth. But it made sense with the morning's conversation. Ritsuko's everlasting curiosity had hit him again, instead of denying the event however. Shinji decided to try be bold.

"Why?"

"I want Rei to learn so I can practice to see if a theory of mine is effective"

Misato sighed at the honest answer that Ritsuko gave. It was like she hadn't learnt anything from the previous two experiments she worked on. It was if by automation, she forgot that Rei was a human being and that she couldn't rule over her life anymore. There was also the fact she couldn't perform lab tests nor afford them. And had on both of her previous assignments, almost been incrassated.

"Misato, can you load the car" Shinji said "ill be down in a minute"

Misato didn't know what was going on, but complied with his requests. If he could help her by getting this stupid idea out of her friends head, then that's more then she could ever ask of Shinji. Ritsuko and Shinji were now in the room. Shinji dropped his bag on the sofa and grabbed his jacket again. As luck would have it, Ritsuko was still dressed as if she was going to do the delivery instead of Misato or Shinji.

"lets talk about this" Shinji spoke clearly "your coming"

* * *

Some ten minutes later, Ritsuko was sitting in the passenger seat while Shinji was driving down Cherry Blossom Avenue towards Mt Kira road. Ritsuko had imagined that Shinji was going to scare her with some fancy driving. She was prepared for that, after all, she wanted to see it herself. 

"First of all" Shinji said "tell me what this theory of yours is"

Ritsuko was a little confused, was he defending or not. She didn't know what Shinji was up to. None the less, she explained it to Shinji.

"As you might remember, when you were an Evangelion pilot, you were trained to synchronize with them. But we could never figure out a way of help training the pilots to concentrate in aiding that"

Shinji could see that the doctor was onto something, at the same time extremely off the topic and probably not thinking it through. With all that considered, Shinji could probably guess the rest of the argument.

"Anyway, your battle last night gave me an idea about something" Ritsuko explained further "your concentration was incredible, despite the fact that you were almost asleep, and I thought that the training and races you have done so far would helped you apply a level of concentration that it's connected to syncing"

Ritsuko went on for another few minutes explaining the minor details how she planned to connect Rei into training

"That doesn't even make sense" Shinji turned into the side street that went to hot spring resort at the end "the reason why is simply because of an assumption"

"I don't get it"

"If you want to know what happened, ill tell you" Shinji said "I hallucinated and though I was racing someone I really hated. I was practically asleep, lack of sleep and nightmares tend to do that"

Ritsuko stopped talking; she realized that Shinji was being serious with her, and what scared her now was that she realized that he wasn't backing down from the fight. Shinji stopped outside of the hot springs estate to a waiting Chisame, whom always greeted him with a smile

"Good afternoon Shinji-san"

"Hello"

"Different car?" Chisame noticed the obvious difference "did Misato-san take the Trueno to the shop?"

"Yes" Shinji assumed from the last comment that Misato must've given her an update about the previous evening. He didn't need to tell Chisame about the drift battle; most likely she would've managed to put all the pieces together by now given the people staying at her place would've all been to the battle.

Chisame accepted the tofu and saw Shinji off. He now had one more stop before he headed back. Ritsuko had taken some time to think about the conversation before. Shinji concentrate on the road before she continued

"So you won't teach her how to drive?" Ritsuko asked again

"Why do you refuse to stop treating Rei like an animal?" Shinji asked,

"I'm not" Ritsuko annoyed with some frustration left over from the argument with Misato.

"Really doc" Shinji said turning on the road "the moment you came up with that crazy idea, you were already thinking what color jumpsuit Rei should be wearing"

Shinji gave a hard uphill turn onto the road; Discomforting Ritsuko further. She was starting to regret agreeing on coming along with Shinji on this short trip. Shinji however had planned this and wasn't going to stop either. Shinji didn't want to risk destroying the Tofu and therefore couldn't drift around corners. He was almost tempted to break his own rules; The FC had more then enough power in its 13B Turbo to perform a hill climb.

It had then come to Ritsuko that Shinji had never driven a fast sports car before. The power of this car was at least twice the Black Trueno could accomplish; even the new engine it had problems with ousting the engine's ability.

Shinji hadn't wanted to talk about more until he finished his delivery home. But it wasn't his freedom to grant his own wish, and the person in the passenger seat continued,

"I know it's a crazy theory, but what makes you think you know any better?" Ritsuko said,

Shinji sighed before he turned the corner; he had reached the hot springs he needed to deliver it too. Shinji decided to remain silent now and just deliver the tofu. But it came to him to tell Ritsuko something.

"If she asks…" Shinji said "the car we use normally is a tune up, your Misato's sister and you're visiting"

"What are you talking about?" Ritsuko noticed the sign _Sohma Family hot springs estate_. For some reason, Shinji had to tell her to change her mind, and Misato had told her that she should just listen to Shinji on this matter before. She sighed and waited to see what kind of person this hostess was.

* * *

Just as Misato predicted, the woman was a nosy old hag who had to jump on the opportunity to blow up at Shinji; the topic of today was the damage he caused to the car. Misato had explained to him and the hostess that the engine was getting an overhaul and it was no surprise her 'sister' had a sports car. 

Ritsuko was amazed that Shinji didn't flinch once when she continued to lay it into her about how people his age should be in the military or something; despite the fact that Shinji was at least 3 years younger then the minimum age of entry. Ritsuko herself didn't escape the fury of this annoying old woman; she was citied for not enforcing her sister to get married already and let a man take over the business.

The two of them left the building, not followed by the hostess who told them she would delay the payment by a day for the condition of the tofu, it was in good condition, but this hostess had a strange view on quality. Shinji had driven to the road before Ritsuko went nuts at nobody

"How the…what does she….what right does she have to tell me what to do!!!" Ritsuko yelled.

Shinji chucked before turning right.

"Where are you going?" Ritsuko said "town is the other way"

"Why do you think I hate sync tests?" Shinji said "come on tell me"

Ritsuko remembered the talk from before again and realized that Shinji had only stopped because they had arrived to the clients address. He held it in the back of his mind like he always did when hiding his anger. Shinji was a strange person and acted beyond her years every time he did that.

"Time consuming?" Ritsuko incorrectly guessed

"Because our best wasn't good enough for you" Shinji revoked. He pulled the parking break and spun the car; turning the vehicle around in the middle of the road. "Instead of trying to find ways to make the machine sync with us, we forced us to sync with it"

"What difference does that make?" Ritsuko said "the syncing had to be done by the pilots"

"I'll show you" Shinji said "the difference that it makes"

At once Shinji floored the white and blue Mazda FC and catapulted down Mt Kira road. Ritsuko was expecting this to happen, but since then she had realized certain things. One: Shinji had never driven this car before, Two: she was in the car. Shinji didn't seem to notice the fear in her eyes as Shinji soon got the next corner.

'A lot of power in this car huh?' Shinji thought 'I probably could do the same stuff with I do with the Trueno at half the power'

Shinji decided to test this, he knew the car had power now, but he had to see about braking. Shinji hit the brakes at the same time he did with the Trueno and spun the wheel. He noticed automatically that the speed dropped rapidly and the drift was almost a non event. He jiggled the wheel to re-align himself with the road. The car he noticed now had a lot more differences to the Trueno.

'I suppose this will be a learning experience for both of us' Shinji hit the accelerator and started speeding for the first hairpin.

"Shinji?" Ritsuko asked "what are you doing?"

"Experimenting a bit, I'm sure you're familiar with the term?" Shinji said blandly, before that, he practiced his cornering again. This time he decided to push the accelerator to twice the power his Trueno could give out at the moment he hit the brakes. Shinji did so and it the brakes. It worked; He had the speed, now the drift; Shinji turned the wheel for a second to the right and then all the way to the right. He noticed then that the car was drifting a fair ways out of the line he took for a hairpin.

Shinji shifted gears and hit the accelerator; he had drifted too far out. Too much acceleration and poor steering; No, it was just steering, he didn't hold the wheel to the left long enough to start the swing. Shinji righted the car for the centre of the road. He now knew the speed he needed and the steering he needed, the braking would be this third corner.

"Ok time for the corner" Shinji prepared to turn the wheel and hit the brakes. The first time he had used the settings he applied to the Trueno, the second time he applied the settings times two. Now he was going to do it as 1 ½ the standard of the Trueno, but move the wheel twice as much.

Shinji hit the brakes and turned the steering wheel this time he held the wheel for one second longer and this time he got the swing he needed. The Mazda swung its tail out t the degree he needed and faced the car to the exit of the corner. The acceleration was just faster then what the Trueno did at this corner, the braking was compensating for that and he had gotten the same result of the car on a different scale.

"Okay" Shinji announced, "Now I have it figured out"

"Figured it out?" Ritsuko though, the last three corners were quite good, the first three all were decent corners, but what was Shinji talking about? But Ritsuko's mind noticed she had run out of time when Shinji accelerated suddenly. Shinji saw the next corner and prepared for it. He knew the corner, not off by heart but by visual sight; how he would attack the corner in the Trueno, he then made the approximate guessed changes to the technique for the Mazda and drifted as required. Suddenly it felt like Shinji had been driving the FC for 18 months on Mt Kira Road.

Shinji tapped up his pace, much to the fear of the doctor. He knew and was aware he was even scared that he could crash, but he had to nail it now, he wanted to drive fast and give Ritsuko the ride of her life. He wasn't good yet, but it left Ritsuko wondering if that was comforting or insane thinking. Shinji bought himself to the next hairpin, he decided to step on the gas and let this be over in an instant

'One, two…' Shinji braked and turned the wheel around at once, his steering wasn't as good in this area with the 86, but the FC had some better control over that, and his speed could be increased. At the same time of finding a benefit in his ability to drive this car, he found a flaw in his ability to drive the Trueno.

The white and blue car made a almost perfect four wheel drift around the hairpin, almost being the distance between the outer guardrail and the back of the car. Shinji hadn't yet mastered the corners on the top end, thus the reasons why the same reason why he was attacking them at full speed.

Shinji brought himself around several more corners before he came to the main straightway. On the other end he could see the corner and floored it instantly. The speed of the 13B turbo now showed Shinji the potential of this car. He didn't need to be told that he was going faster the normal, in fact he didn't care.

Shinji approached the next corner and slowed down, he braked and gave Ritsuko a jerked feeling of feeling the gravity forwards. He spun the car, and cornered almost like it was common sense. A little bit beyond the exit of the corner, a family sedan was driving at normal speed. Shinji cleared the other car by 50cm.

"This is crazy!" Ritsuko looked back to see the family sedan had braked in panic,

"Happens all the time" Shinji said as he approached the next hairpin corner. Shinji had noticed then he was making record time, even if it was in the Trueno thou, he knew it was because he was making terrific speed on the longer straightway, and his cornering was pretty wide, even for him. The FC's cornering he noticed was the only flaw so far, it had nice speed, but with the Trueno, he could hug the inner edge of the corner.

'So power isn't everything huh?' Shinji cleared out to the straightway,

At this point, Ritsuko had to only assume that Shinji was nuts. Either because of the hot springs lady or her; she had misjudged the reactions from him however; Shinji wasn't mad, after over a year of dealing with an annoying woman like the hot springs lady. He wasn't fazed by it.

Shinji however wanted to prove a point. As he had said, there was a difference between syncing and drifting that she couldn't overcome. Shinji continued driving around corners and scaring Ritsuko as per plan. With another five corners to go, Shinji accelerated the car and drifted around. Again it was apparent that the FC had a wide radius of turning, at this speed at least. He had that down, as well as in the length of one downhill run; managed to figure out the speed and braking ratio he had to apply to a car like this. The strengths and weaknesses of a turbo rotary engine and the speed he would have to apply.

It wasn't like he couldn't have seen it, but there on the hairpin corner up ahead, a pickup was stopped at the inside edge on the corner. Shinji didn't seem to notice, instead he accelerated, and the Mazda revved as it approached the corner.

"Shinji, stop! That car!" Ritsuko was ignored however and Shinji continued. It was when the front of his car had past the pickup he braked. It was far too late by conventional methods, Shinji didn't turn the wheel left, and instead he turned only in the direction of the corner. They passed the car and started to drift towards the steel guardrails, it was a hairpin so it wasn't a matter of holding for a second.

Shinji hit the accelerator and turn the wheel towards the outward edge, by this point he had actually reached the apex of the corner and the car was almost 80 degrees from the normal path. Shinji had got the car facing the right direction, but earlier then he needed. Shinji hit the brakes a little more and let the car drift until the car was aligned with the exit finally. He slammed the accelerator and catapulted his drift with power. Shinji held the wheel and turn to face the inside again, he narrowly missed the guardrail by inches, but he was clear.

Shinji resumed his calm self. Even he was sweating a bit, at the 'close' line he took. Shinji decided to not really push the car any further now and he slowed his pace down form now on. He looked over at Ritsuko whom was both pale and looking at him.

"Why didn't you slow down?" Ritsuko said "or for that matter, brake?"

"Why didn't you see the difference?" Shinji turned the final corner and returned to ground level, Ritsuko was glad it was over now. But what was the meaning in his question, now she was confused, as confused as how the possibility of hitting that car was.

"What difference?"

"The difference is in front of your and you can't see it?" Shinji sighed, "And you call yourself a doctor…"

"Ok, I admit it, don't get it" Ritsuko said "What is the difference between you and Rei, apart from that your drive with no intention to live!"

Shinji waited till she calmed down

"The difference is I want myself to drive for myself"

Ritsuko was left to think about that the rest of the trip home.

* * *

A/N: FINALLY!!! and yet i feel the ending is a little cheezy, what do you think? this chapter was a real nutter, given how its suppose to flow off the back of the previous one. oh well, it set up a few things for me.

Pls keep reading and reviewing


	11. Episode 10: The New Teacher

After Evangelion

Episode 10: The new teacher

Shinji woke up to the sound of his alarm clock find that the air was a lot cooler this morning. It didn't feel bad at all; winter was coming after all, and it didn't worry him a bit. He didn't immediately get out of bed; he had plenty of time to do that and it was only a Wednesday. For a few minutes, he looked out the window up to the sky to see what kind of weather; he couldn't see the stars that normally were visible, instead he was rewarded with the dull view of clouds.

'Overcast hmm?' Shinji pondered. He wasn't exactly annoyed about the prospect of rain, but it was disconcerting because it meant he couldn't exactly drive as fast today. He pondered about the day ahead; after the driving lesson Shinji gave Ritsuko the previous Sunday; he had agreed to teach Rei, but only under the condition that if she wanted to. Fortunately or unfortunately; Rei had genuinely wanted to drive for herself. Shinji sighed and started the teach Rei the basics, which ate up all of his spare time gained when Asisaka took his shift on certain afternoons.

Shinji felt that he had lost control of his life from this point; until he either moved out or Ritsuko got the money she was promised. This was a probability which grew by the day, Rei and the Doctor had been with them for almost three weeks now and she didn't even keep to her original promise of getting a job. This was also eating into Misato's patience as she continued to allow her friend to freeload off her house.

Before any more time marched on, Shinji slowly got out of bed, tip-toed around Rei and walked out the door, carrying clothes to change in. he was surprised to learn that Misato was already up this morning.

"Good morning Shinji"

"Morning?"

"I know it's out of habit, but doctor annoyance was snoring last night"

Shinji shrugged it off and changed while Misato went downstairs to load the Trueno. It had taken only three days in the repair shop; despite the speed of the Mazda being a nice change; Shinji was glad to be driving his car again from this morning onwards. He was familiar with the car, knew the limits inside and out, the pace would be slower of course, but it was something he could live with.

After a short change into something that was acceptable in the public eye, he walked downstairs to find that Misato was carrying the last box out now. Downstairs it was colder; a definite sign that it was starting to creep towards winter. He didn't bother; the Trueno with a heater is what he would simply answer it with. He walked outside to find the car was loaded, and that Misato was in the passenger seat.

"Misato?"

"Don't mind me" she replied with a yawn "I'm going to come with you today"

Shinji gave up caring a moment later and got in the drivers side of the car. Slowly he started up the car and drove down Cherry Blossom Avenue towards Mt Kira Road. He felt tired and at the permission of Misato, the two of them stopped by the gas station near the bottom of the road to pick up express coffee and energy bars, only to find it wouldn't open for another 30 minutes. As Shinji had predicted, the weather was miserable and the usual dawn light that occupied this time of day was delayed by a thick cloud cover that had rolled through the valley over the course of the evening.

He could tell that it was going to be a cold and slow day, but nothing could be done though; and he had a full day ahead with both school and another installment of driving lessons for Rei. This perpetual annoyance started on Monday when Shinji took Rei out in the Mazda to see what she could do; apparently she knew the basics of driving, just as Ritsuko said, but once she accelerated, it was a different story.

From what Shinji could guess, it was the equivalent to a panic for her. Such problems were because her mind ended up in conflict about the morality of speeding. Such thinking had dangerous results; Rei had almost crash the FC head on with the guardrail. After that embarrassing lesson, Rei was talked to by Ritsuko to clear up that problem in her mental thinking.

Yesterday Rei did a little better, she didn't loose concentration, but her inability to time her clutch and braking resulted in some speculator spinouts on the hairpins, and a nice scratch on the back right corner of the FC. Shinji wasn't going to enjoy today, as he expected to have such event to now occur everyday when he had to teach Rei. What further worried Shinji was that the training would take place in his 86 now. The FC was in the shop for the minor ding. Thus it seemed that Shinji would have to sacrifice his beloved car to the crazy erratic style of Rei.

It wasn't fair; it wasn't because of his car or his previous accidental scratches that he managed to give his car. Ritsuko determined that the 86 could stand the damage because it was a cheaper and old vehicle. Well the initiative was there; but he could hardly call his car old, it was a 'second generation' AE86, and it wasn't the genuine mid 1980's model. The Mazda FC that Ritsuko owned in fact was made in the same year the production line switched over to the FD model of that sports car. The faster car was also the older of the two.

Shinji didn't like it when Ritsuko was commanding. It was clear that the little lesson on Sunday only did the opposite effect and gave her more abridged notification of the problems that had to be overcome to make the theory even probable. That's what made Ritsuko so dangerous, she didn't know how when to say no.

For the majority of the climb this morning, Shinji drove slowly, as he discovered to find Misato actually fast asleep before they arrived to Chisame's hotel. It was a strange thing for Misato to fall asleep like this. Shinji didn't blame her though, the fact she found Shinji's driving comfortable enough that she could actually sleep was assuring in her trust. Then again, it could've been that Misato, like she appeared, hadn't managed to get any sleep last night.

Shinji decided today to drive extra slow and calmly, even doing his best to quietly open the Trueno's boot without means of waking her. Shinji had focused a lot on driving as calmly as possible until he left Chisame's hotel.

"How long have I been sleeping?" Misato started "and where are we?"

"We just left Chisame" Shinji said "I didn't wake you up, it seemed to you needed the sleep"

Misato yawned for a moment before looking for her coffee. It then came to her that she didn't take the flask that she had prepared before. But for some reason she could still smell the unmistakable coffee beans in hot water that she relied on for energy. Before she could even guess, Shinji explained

"You can thank Chisame later"

Misato shrugged and opened the flask to drink the contents. Shinji continued to drive ahead.

"So what did you want to talk about?" Shinji said "or did you just want to get some sleep"

"I wanted to ask you how you're doing with Rei, and what we're doing about Ritsuko"

"Well, Ritsuko has already committed to making Rei drive, despite her disliking for it"

"I'm going to tell Ritsuko she has a deadline" Misato said, this made Shinji turn to look at her, "if she doesn't get a job in two weeks, they can look for different accommodation"

"Is Ritsuko even looking for work?"

"Yes, but she is being unrealistic in her job hunting" Misato explained "I've even managed to get her a possibility, but she refuses to go and consider it"

"Where is the job?"

"There is an opening at the hospital in town, a GP position in the clinic section and the lab section needs a new chief"

"How did you arrange that?" Shinji asked in surprise,

"I know the doctor" Misato explained "for one, she goes the local community business meeting, and she buys goods from us"

"…and you asked her about it didn't you"

"Smart cookie" Misato replied "she said that she'd take on Ritsuko no problem"

"Then how come the doctor hasn't?"

"I found out why" Misato said angrily "she said that she has past the age for finding a new career and is waiting for that professor in Kyoto to give her the money"

"You're kidding"

"She intended to retire rich and of all places, where we live" Misato said "I'm going to give her an ultimatum today and hopefully she'll try the hospital first"

Shinji nodded in agreement before continuing to drive to the next hotel. Shinji decided to not go fast, even if Misato was awake. It felt like he would need his concentration and energy for today.

* * *

Location: Karasuyama-2 Public high school, Karasuyama-2

Time: 08:55

Date: September 27th, 2017

While the rest of the morning had gone right to plan; from this moment on, everything would spin drastically out of control. Shortly after their arrival back at the store, it started to rain heavily in the small township. Not that rain was a terribly bad thing given the heat that this summer past had been, but this type of weather was infamous for doing many things. At the very least though, Shinji had a proper excuse to save his Trueno from getting damaged from Rei's inexperienced skills.

The classroom was starting to fill up with the usually buzz that came with the 30 or so students, all communicating their stories of what happened since they last saw each other on Friday. While others wouldn't have preferred it; Shinji actually liked the loud and lively company of this class, given his experience at a Tokyo-3 middle school was quite bizarre. In those classes which barely broke twenty students a grade, the atmosphere was a pin drop of tension.

The Tension here was nonexistent; everyone was carefree about the ordeal. However this would change in a while the normal mood of a classroom bored of the class.

"Shinji, I saw the video last night" Kazuma said "that was unreal man, I mean seriously that was damn hardcore drifting"

Unaware of the real reason why there was no sound, Kensuke had purposely deleted the audio of the entire race, the screaming near the end was chilling and somehow it reminded him of the one experience inside the evangelion. Because of this, Kensuke couldn't look at Shinji straight today. He had heard of his concentration being tested during the race; but he didn't expect to hear the screams of an insane manic.

Toji, Kazuma and Naoko had seen the video as well, now very much proud of their friend's ability, last Saturday had proven them the race with the Sileighty wasn't a fluke. He was a genuine road racer and the only real challenge that their town had managed to grow. Albeit that Shinji wasn't homegrown at all; which to some of the visiting road racers actually place question on Shinji's background.

"Shinji; how is the training with Rei going?" Toji asked

"As I was when I first learnt, but worse" Shinji replied

He had told them all about the experience on Monday when he almost ended up in hospital, now he told them about yesterday when she did nothing but spin out the FC on the hairpins.

"I keep telling myself that Rei might be able to if she has practice, but I don't know"

"She's driving the FC?"

"That's the plan" Shinji said "I've suggested the idea to Ritsuko that she should stick to one vehicle…but I have my own reasons"

"Don't want her to dint your precious 86?"

"It's not like I don't trust her, but I don't like the idea of my car getting that sort of treatment"

"Ritsuko thinks that the 86 and the FC are similar enough to work for her" Shinji replied "but the engine that my car has isn't anything like the 13-B turbo Ritsuko's car has"

"That's true enough" Kazuma replied "but I can't see Rei behind the wheel of the FC however"

"I'll give it a week" Shinji said

"Hey, ill tell you what" Kazuma "When do you have a practice session?"

"Tomorrow or Friday night I guess"

"How about Toji, Kensuke and me come along to watch the practice?"

"You're kidding me right?"

"No" Toji spoke "I want to see this practice for myself first"

"Won't Hikari object?" Shinji groaned "I mean she laid it into me on Monday when she was alone with me"

Hikari had been judicial about the whole race on Saturday, despite seeing it for herself; she was convinced that he should pursue a path in such a dangerous sport. Shinji had agreed with her on that, he didn't want to pursue it professionally, or beyond what he already had done. But Ritsuko was now pushing stuff in his face. Even if he could, Shinji didn't want to face Hikari after that episode, after all she didn't even approve of him driving yet.

"Listen, I'll explain it to her that it can't be helped" Toji replied

"Alright"

At that very moment, Hikari came in to commence the morning meeting before the homeroom teacher arrived.

"Okay, can I get your attention please?" Hikari took the podium in front of the classroom.

The class had learnt enough times that Hikari was a lean and mean class rep to be dealt with. Whatever her experiences in Tokyo-3's middle school system did to her, she was a professional, if there was such a thing. Hikari waited at class slowly calmed down and took its seats. When hikari took over the role of class representative, this class was one of the most disorganized in the entire school. Shinji knew what kind of character Hikari was and he even bet with Toji and Kensuke on how long that it would take for her to get the class in shape. However, none of them expected Hikari to take less then a month to turn it into the kind of classroom she uses to command.

The meeting was more of less a regular announcement of school duties, team announcements, the only in-class related subject was assigning Rei to a timetable for classroom cleaning. This pleased Shinji, it now made 2 afternoons open for him to force Ritsuko to not do a lesson, especially when one of those afternoons he had off from work. The last announcement was that a new teacher was being assigned to them; the 25yr old male teacher was going to take over English and history for the remainder of the semester, but their homeroom teacher would remain. That was typical, they all just handed in the report and expecting an easy going teacher to mark them, and now they were going to be looked at by a brand new teacher straight out of Tokyo-2 University.

"Well, however this guy is, we don't have him until after lunch" Kensuke noted,

Shinji nodded in agreement, but something was nagging at him that the afternoon wasn't something to look forward to for the same reasons. English was one of Shinji's weaknesses and one of Rei's strange points. Then again, Rei's education as far as he knew so far was a strange mix, which left the homeroom and science teachers confused.

Last Friday, Shinji had to quietly remind her that she didn't know about LCL and that you couldn't recall the exact specifications of the Evangelion's height and other technical facts that only a pilot would know. But telling Rei that didn't make sense to her and she almost did so, only to be literally saved by a bell. Shinji wondered what this new teacher was like, only to slowly drift into a stare out the window at the falling rain.

* * *

The weather didn't really get any better by lunch time; in fact it felt like it only got worse. By lunchtime, the cold outside made a relaxing feel from the stuffy body heat of 40 students in the classroom, it couldn't be helped, even if you could go downstairs to the cafeteria, it would be just as bad, the humidity would only make it worse.

So out of the two places, Shinji decided to just eat his lunch in the classroom, his joined him and added a table to form a rudimentary table for the eight people sitting here. Hikari was absent for the moment, she lost the toss and was the one going to get lunch today from the canteen.

Shinji always made his own lunch, and today was no different, although he now was preparing Rei's meals as well; which could've only caused suspicious to anyone who didn't know Rei's immediate background. Shinji didn't really care what people assumed. Naoko would think dating and Kazama would probably confirm it by some physic means.

In any regard, Shinji had more problematic concerns, like making Rei a lunch she would eat. It had taken him a while to remember that Rei didn't like to eat meat of any description. Thus her lunchbox usually would contain only rice balls or vegetables. He had taken two days to make something she could eat and a further day before he could perfect something that even made Rei comment positively on.

It somehow made Naoko and Hikari jealous, of the times they got to sample it; they quickly became annoyed with Rei that she got to have a sample. Thought Hikari was more then accepting, Naoko complained.

"Why don't you ever make my lunch for me?"

"Cause I think your able to handle it"

"Then why Rei" Naoko replied "she doesn't even say thank you"

"Well, Rei needs help making hers"

Everyone minus those who didn't know already had agreed that Rei needed an excuse for being so quiet all the time. While it didn't seem to be necessary, they still used the excuse that Rei had previous mental problems in the past. As of yet, Naoko and Kazuma had both come up with their own conclusion that Rei was just a very quiet bookworm. However, by the simple curiously of supplying this quiet girl lunch, Shinji had inadvertently caused the two friends to further speculate something to more along the lines of a hidden relationship.

Shinji continued to eat lunch, ignoring the speculation that the two drama-deprived counterparts craved in their spare time. Hikari left in advance to do some business before the afternoon class. Toji and Kensuke, along with Shinji and Kazuma decided to bear the remaining 40 minutes of class with card games.

"So Shinji, have you thought about the offer?" Kazuma asked

"What offer?" Shinji said forgetfully

"Damn Shinji" Kensuke said "to watch over you while you're practicing with Rei!"

"Yea…sure…but I don't know…you guys really don't want to"

"Don't worry" Kensuke said with a disbelieving tone.

He had an alternate motive, which was to find a way to get into the passenger seat of the AE86 with Shinji. He wanted to be where his video camera recorded on the first two races but no opportunity had opened it itself, until now that is.

Toji nodded approvingly as if to back Kensuke's point.

"Alright, but if Misato says no, its no"

* * *

The afternoon class couldn't have been anymore discomforting, even before the teacher had come in the air in the room which was slate from this morning was still occupying the room and the stench of the handful of guys and girls who went to play in the hall only made the whole atmosphere a lot worse then before. But the worst part hadn't started yet. From what rumors were around, Shinji had learn that the other class had experienced what they described as 'a teacher so full of himself, that it was impossible to believe he was a registered teacher' Shinji didn't really care, no man was worse then his father and none had yet come even close to it. Shinji experienced the height of evil in his time at NERV and didn't expect anyone like a teacher to even pose a threat to his peaceful world.

That conclusion was only now going to be rewritten; the door opened as a tallish young man with blond hair walked into the room, he didn't appear to be sweating from the internal moisture and heat that the building current had. He even apparently looked like he had gone out to clean himself up. Girls could've found him attractive if they hadn't picked up the vibe of someone already too proud of himself.

"Good afternoon" he said in a force obviously played for acting

"Good afternoon sensei" the class replied,

"My name is Ryouske, or as they knew me in Tokyo-2 university, Great Teacher Ryouske"

In a dozen male minds, including Shinji, their moods at the moment he finished speaking dropped further to the floor with the same thought, they all instantly and discreetly hated this new teacher, He went on explaining the role that the students would be doing in the class for the time he was here; apparently he was here until Christmas, which was now 11 or so weeks away. Shinji managed to ignore the teacher entirely as he managed to concentrate on the work he had eventually given out some 30 minutes into the lesson.

He didn't notice the look that he was giving him and Rei. The class continued on as per usual, among the poison smell of the afternoon, sweat and the outside moisture mixing in, and the general nature that the class had unilaterally agreed a dislike in a single thought that the teacher; who spend the 30 minutes wasted talking about his background and very much little to do with the class lesson he was suppose to teach.

"Ikari-san"

"Yes Sensei?"

"Can you answer question 16?"

Shinji replied with the correct answer, noticing that it annoyed the teacher a bit, like he was expecting him to by unable to answer.

"Um….who can answer number 17?" Ryosuke asked which got the replied in the form of 3 hands

"Ayanami- san"

"Yes Sensei?" Rei replied in her monotone voice

"Can you please answer 17?"

Rei replied and was slightly incorrect; Shinji noticed this time that the teacher noted some pleasure.

It didn't take long for Hikari to notice that despite the fact that several other people kept putting up their hand, This Ryouske-sensei was constantly picking Rei, Shinji or Toji to answer. After Hikari noticed it, it didn't take long for everyone else to notice it,, but nobody seemed to know why; there wasn't anything special from the three, expect all of them had come from Tokyo-3 and after the last angel attacked.

Apart from this certain fact, nobody else really knew the other unique things about them, expect of course Hikari and Kensuke; who knew that in the room were 3 out of the 4 Evangelion pilots and they all had backgrounds that would make the strongest in this room sick; One had been cloned multiple times, one was the son of the commander who had been charged with heinous war crimes, and the last being involved in a 'accident' which cost him two limbs.

Everyone expect Rei had a dark thought for a long hour about the true intentions of the teacher. Eventually, after the said hour, the teacher had expanded the number of students to include Hikari and Kensuke. Now the rest of the class, especially Naoko and Kazuma were trying to figure out why only the 'Tokyo-3 kids' were being picked on for questions.

Naoko pondered in her chair to the possible reasons that they were the only ones being called. They all lived to toyko-3, they all went the same middle school, though with population the way it was, that couldn't be helped. Ryosuke didn't mention going to Tokyo-3 ever in his 30 minute display of self-importance. Naoko was smart, which was what made her dangerous. But she couldn't seem to link Rysouke's motive towards Shinji and the rest.

"That'll be all for today, please remember to read page 200 to 250" Ryosuke said, getting the reply of something that sounded like a gasp and a groan at the same time. Given that the usual homework consisted of 8 to 10 pages max, it was no surprise that everyone in the room was suddenly very annoyed with the teacher who claimed to be the greatest.

"Rise!" Hikari started the procedure to end the exhausting day "Bow!"

"Good Afternoon Sensei"

Everyone in the room was relieved to leave the room, even thou the hallways were just as humid, it was a relief as the air was slightly fresher then what it was normally.

"I don't know what was worse, the smell of sweat, or that jerk!" Hikari said "Great teacher Ryosuke…jeez, anyone be a jerk that easily"

The whole group had listened to her outburst in surprise, usually because the outbursts came from the three stooges first. Whatever the matter, Kensuke was already clearing out to go to work; Where Asisaka would already be waiting for him. Shinji continued to pack and then waited for Rei, they had only 1 umbrella and Rei was apparently more prone to colds then he was. Toji would do the gentlemen thing and escort Hikari to her part time job with his umbrella, Naoko and Kazuma decided however to walk home with Shinji and Rei.

The group walked down the hallway and then outwards the northwest entrance where the teachers parked their cars. Usually teachers owned a medium sized family car or a mini or some sort, but one car stood out from the bunch; a black Nissan GT-R 34.

"Who do you suppose drives that beast?" Kazuma said"

"I can guess one person" Shinji turned to look towards the building, and surely enough as if on cue, a grey umbrella popped up and started a semi-jog down the path to the parking lot.

"**G**reat **T**eacher **R**youske owns that **GT-R** 34" Shinji sighed "if I didn't know someone who had a even greater ego then him, he would've become the new king"

Shinji and the gang ignored him and walked down the street entrance walking towards the corner, just as they cleared the entrance, the Skyline raced out of the parking lot and cornered badly out and down the street. If the noise and surprise of barely missing Rei and Shinji wasn't enough it was the puddle of water that splashed on to their legs and back that did.

Shinji managed to remain calm, only feeling like screaming out at the car which since had left his vision. He then inspected Rei whom was now thoroughly soaked below her waistline. He sighed and picked pace to get home as soon as plausible. Kazuma and Naoko didn't seem to mind, given how the rain was now getting worse, despite the fact that Shinji could see a line of white blue somewhere a little further away.

The absence of what passed as normal conversation lacked for a few minutes and 2 blocks. Eventually someone had to break the ice formed. Kazuma decided to ask the obvious question.

"Shinji, do you know why that teacher was picking on you and Rei?" Kazuma said

"I have no idea" Shinji said. He actually didn't give it any thought and while he was on the subject, he then seemed to notice the strange pattern that this teacher employed, not once in the entire 90 minutes of class they actually were learning did anyone else expect him and the other two Evangelion pilot present. There was no reason for the provocation, he took the class as seriously as everyone else, he answered every question correctly, and he surely continued to work as hard as everyone else.

But the one dark thought that Hikari and Kensuke had over three hours ago was now festering in Shinji's mind, expect this thought was being by the negative aura that could make anything possible.

"Shinji, Naoko and I are going to see Kensuke now, you want to come"

"No thanks" Shinji said "this is my first afternoon off work, I just want to go home and get some rest"

The group of four split evenly, Naoko and Kazuma walking off to the store, Shinji and Rei walking home as soon as possible. The walk was mostly silent, Rei rarely asked questions at all, let alone found the reason to ask them at all. Shinji had pondered about the thing Misato was going to do today. She said that she would tell Ritsuko today that they had to get ready to move out and that was final.

Shinji didn't doubt that Misato would do it, but he didn't have faith in her that she would be able to convince her friend and the girl that came with her to move out. The money that the professor was clearly not going to come and there was now a demanding need for Ritsuko to look for a job, which Misato had confidently setup for her in the previous week.

When Shinji got home, he was surprised to find that the tofu shop had been closed up, and still surprised further that his Black Trueno was still parked besides the building. This did really limit a lot of options, they couldn't be home, and cause there hadn't been a day in the store's operation where it was closed. Shinji entered through the backdoor and found out that Misato and Ritsuko went home. He then managed to speculate on where they went.

'She closed up the shop, so they somewhere, the rain makes it hard to go anywhere, but they didn't take the car, so they went somewhere local' Shinji though to himself. Before he could, he turned around and just then noticed that Rei was still standing outside near the Trueno

"What are you waiting for?" Shinji wondered at the obscenity of crazy reasons that Rei might reply with

"I'm not sure" was all that came out of Rei's mouth,

"Well, come inside already" Shinji replied 'jeez I got enough problems with school and home and this racing business; god knows what kind of problems I would get if you were sick'

Shinji opened upstairs to find that the household was left relativity clean when compared to the average day, no beer cans were around the table and the kitchen had actually been left intact; Evidence that Misato and Ritsuko went and had lunch somewhere instead. Shinji decided first to dispose of their wet clothing and to get comfortable and dry.

"Rei, you can change first" Shinji said as he took her bag and went to put them on coat hooks in the laundry downstairs. Rei complied and walked into Shinji's room to start getting changed. Some 20 minutes later the two had changed out of their clothes and were now enjoying what was now a relaxing afternoon, Shinji collapsed on his bed and look skywards out the window; he'd have to go out in that weather in another few hours.

But Shinji decided that he would have rest now. He rolled his head over to notice Rei was already doing her homework, reading a small book of some description. It was strange how he now felt comfortable with Rei in the same room; Shinji dozed off with the sound of the clock on the desk chirping every second away and the rain pouring on the tile roof.

* * *

His dreaming was short lived however; about an hour after he closed his eyes, he abruptly heard the door downstairs almost being kicked open. Shinji took only a few seconds to go from a blissful sleep to fully awake and alert.

"Rei, what was that?" Shinji said in reaction, though Rei was just as equally surprised and didn't know herself. The two teenagers waited in the room in silence to hear any follow up noises, it only too another three seconds before a familiar voice got rid of the nervous tension

"Ms. Katsuragi and the doctor are home" Rei announced the same moment Shinji figured the answer for himself. Shinji listened to hear that both of them were yelling something incoherent. Which could only mean one thing; they had gone out for lunch and just spend 5 hrs yelling at each other and now they decided to bring their fight home where no witnesses would be present to see the two middle aged women rip each other to bits,

One thing Shinji concluded as he walked out of the room; Misato didn't get the reply that she was expecting out Ritsuko. He sighed more and walked down the stairs to meet the two. To his surprise, he found that Misato and Ritsuko were barely able to stand up straight let alone yell at each other coherently.

Shinji then managed to add that to the equation of what had happened and figured out then the entire story. Misato must've taken Ritsuko out to a bar; Shinji recalled there was one, a few blocks down on a side street off Cherry blossom Avenue. Evidently Misato must've used the rain as an excuse to close shop for the day, they never got customers on a rainy day; to go to the bar to get Ritsuko and herself drunk, then tell her to leave the house.

The plan wasn't thought out well, because Ritsuko was very strong in resisting alcohol and in order to get her drunk, would've required a fair bit of booze. He couldn't fathom what took place, but he ended up guessing they shared a few bottles of sake between them.

"Rei, come and help me" Shinji called the girl out "help me get these two to bed"

"What do you mean?!" Misato yelled at Ritsuko, "'I Have to give a room to sleep under?'"

"You heard me!" the clearly drunk doctor replied with equal anger "where do suppose me and Rei sleep?!"

"Rei doesn't cause a mess"

"come on Misato, lets go to bed" Shinji took her my the arm and started moving her bulk towards the bedroom, Rei did the same expect she had extreme difficulty keeping the doctor steady"

"…and your Miss cleanliness?!"

"At least I have a job and I have a firm footing" Misato yelled "if you want to do better then me, and then go get a job you lazy ferret!"

That made Ritsuko past the line where was a controlled drunk; she moved rapidly and whacked Rei in face and knocked her 'daughter' out; sending her to the floor with a bleeding nose. Shinji saw that and was now at a loss of patience as he grunted Misato away from Ritsuko who almost caught up, only to trip over the chair in front of her and fall over onto the couch from the back.

Shinji ignored the Doctor's ungraceful trip onto the living room couch; here he was, with three girls in the house; two were drunk and passed out while fighting and one was knocked out and on the floor, what made him not snap was his concern for Rei's well being. He quickly moved Misato onto her bed and dropped her down, he'd get her into the bed in a few moments, but his next concern was Rei.

He walked out to find that Rei managed to get herself to her feet, however managed to attempt to move the doctor again, only minutes after she was knocked out.

"Rei, don't worry, I'll handle her" Shinji said "please go stop that bleeding"

Shinji found it odd and disturbing in one way that Rei didn't even notice she was bleeding. However she was following his instructions and walked to the bathroom. Shinji turned his attention to the doctor, who thankfully knocked herself out with her trip. If there was on thing that didn't make sense, it was how out of the two, Ritsuko was the violent drunk, where as Misato was just drunk.

He slowly moved her down the hallway into the bedroom where he had just put Misato on the bed, which thankfully didn't roll onto her stomach or puke into her pillow. He carefully placed Ritsuko down on the futon beside Misato and made sure she wouldn't do the same; then came the task that Shinji hated for as long as he had lived with Misato. From time to time, and with Misato's request many years before, he had to change her out of her clothes and put her in bed.

He was glad that he wasn't made to change the undergarments; his sanity rest assured that it wasn't required, but for any healthy young teenager male, this was the sort of job that was considered short of a sick nightmare. He begun to remove her shoes and socks, tossing them into the hallway to be put near the door or in the laundry, he then slowly moved took her pants and took her shirt, which smelt of puke and threw them into the forming pile of laundry.

Once Misato was done, he covered her with a blanket and pushed a pillow either side of her; given her tenancy to roll over on to her stomach in her sleep. Then came Ritsuko; Shinji was use to Misato, he had done it enough to be use to her body by now, Ritsuko in the other hand was a different matter.

He started in the same manner of Misato, taking the shoes and socks off and throwing them in the hallway, but Ritsuko proved virtually impossible to change in her sleep, unlike Misato who was use to it, the doctor kept squirming around whenever she was touched. It eventually took twice as long to put the doctor to bed, to which Shinji was relieved to only get away with a kick in the arm.

Shinji left the middle aged women alone, wondering why his life seemed to be either about work or school or taking care of two women twice her age. He then proceeded to his next problem, taking care of the last of the three girls in the house. Apparently, and to his shock, Rei was in the bathroom still, while washing the blood away from her face and trying it seemed to stop it getting onto her already bloodied up shirt.

"Rei, what are you doing?!" Shinji asked

"I'm trying to stop the bleeding"

"That's not going to stop it" Shinji on his own grabbed a few tissues from the box on the counter and on his own held Rei's noise as he blocked the burst vain.

"Now hold it like I am doing now and hold it down for 5 minutes" Shinji instructing Rei, who did once he stopped pinching her nose "haven't you ever had a nose bleed before?"

Shinji found it odd that Rei, who had some common sense to cover a head wound, didn't know how to stop her nose bleeding. Rei didn't answer expect shook her head to indicate she didn't have a nose bleed before. Shinji sighed with some content and went to wash his face. It was five o'clock now, and it was time to do the delivery run.

* * *

Shinji hated driving in the rain just as much as he hated Ritsuko, but he was damn glad he didn't have to teach Rei to drive in this today. Thanks to Misato's failed attempt to convince Ritsuko to get a job, the woman wasn't sober or awake to force him to do something he already despised doing. However, he still decided to bring Rei along.

Shinji had some rather odd reasons for this; one was that he didn't want to leave Rei there alone to take care of two drunken women who couldn't seem to take care of themselves. The other reason he had forgotten and was sure that he couldn't recall it in the exact same words that he previously remembered. However, Rei agreed on her own whim and now was quietly sitting in the passenger seat.

The drive up the mountain was a quiet one, he for some strange reason continued to deliver the packages in the same order he did if he was practicing. Shinji assured himself that he was not going to practice in this weather, especially with Rei in the passenger seat and his two guardians currently incapacitated at home. Shinji noticed that Rei herself was 'relaxing' in her seat as she gazed out the window at the now dark skies.

Despite the fact that Rei was by default of her upbringing; unsentimental; her gentle demeanor and innocent look and facial expressions constantly gave away this impression of a quiet and calmly relaxed young lady. Shinji thought nothing of this from the Rei he knew; the first Rei he 'met' had helped her discover, develop and learn some feelings and almost managed to learn how to interpret them. When she died however, these feelings that took months to learn had instantly been locked away again, her clone knowing about them, but again forced to rediscover them.

Shinji felt that looking at Rei knows; he could overlook and even pretend to believe the cover story of the previous clone's death, if it were to make her easier to look at her. No, he had finally overcome that fear of Rei that haunted him for a long time. Shinji simple didn't lie about the death of the previous clones, he didn't pretend anything, and this Rei was the last clone ever he knew would exist.

"Shinji" Rei broke the silence

"Yes" Shinji said as he sped the car into 4th gear on a stretch of road,

"Why did you worry about when my nose was bleeding?"

"Well" Shinji said, unable to reply straight away "you could loose a fair bit of blood that way"

"Unlikely" Rei said,

"Well…" Shinji tried to think of something to explain it, in her point of view he noticed, there was virtually no reason for him helping her. "I guess I'm use to helping people out all the time…"

"Like how you undressed and put Ms. Katsuragi and Dr. Akagi to bed before?"

Shinji shuddered at the though for a moment, for a second loosing concentration of the road "Well something like that, yes…"

Rei pondered the thesis in her head, something that a normal girl wouldn't do, but like Rei, she always seemed to do the thinking for something that nobody did the thinking for. Shinji finally figured out what he had to say,

"Rei, when it's a close friend or family member, it's natural for you to be worried or concerned about their well being, when their hurt or sick, naturally for you to be concerned"

"So you were concerned about me?"

"Yes"

"…and you were concerned about Ms Katsuragi?"

"Yes"

"…and Dr Akagi?"

"Well…" Shinji paused for a moment "I wouldn't say worried, just that it had to be done"

"I don't understand"

"Well, it's a little more complex to explain" Shinji replied honestly "…and I can't think of the words right now"

Rei sat their pondering the comments as Shinji pulled into the driveway for the Sohma family hot springs estate. The task of unloading the final crate of tofu didn't really take long, Rei didn't leave the car as instructed, and he felt that the old lady might take the opportunity to chew both of them at once for some mundane reason. The lady however noticed Rei and made argument at both her absence in doing her job and the further mundane complaining that the two teenagers in a car would and could only mean one thing.

Rei didn't hear this; then again, Rei wouldn't have understood a whole lot of it. Shinji ignored it too and that was because it was nonsense and he already had been disturbed once this afternoon to be able to feel disturbed by this. After a short 10 minutes of being yelled at, Shinji got in the car and drove off towards home. Given the ample time Rei had to her to think out the various things said before, it wasn't surprising that Rei would reply straight away.

"Shinji"

"Yes"

"Am I…" Rei spoke with a momentary pause "…a close friend?"

The one thing that Shinji felt strange then was at the same time, despite how simple the question may have sounded, he didn't know himself. He took a few seconds to think his answer out, wondering if every second her question was left unanswered mattered.

"I think…" Shinji said "…your someone I would care about"

It was a simple answer and to Rei that managed to explain and answer her questions for her. Rei found her heart warming with some emotion, what was it called? Rei took a moment to recall the symptoms, it was something like she 'liked and found comfort' in it, yes, she found the response 'comforting'. Rei then wondered if she had experience the same feeling or worry for Shinji before. What surprised her in a minute of recalling was that in the recent race, she did remember feeling some discomfort in hearing that Shinji was in trouble.

What would this mean? That she cared for Shinji if he was hurt or sick? Just like he was when her nose was bleeding? No matter that, her feeling kept coming back to the sincere comfort that someone cared for her. Rei couldn't exactly understand it, although she had just figured it out for herself.

Shinji drove on at the posted speed, visibility was bad now and Shinji couldn't memorize the course off by heart yet. He didn't notice the car parked just outside the driveway had started moving a few minutes after he started driving back towards Karasuyama-2.

"Rei, you want to get takeout?" Shinji asked suddenly

"Why?"

"Well, there is no real point in going home and disturbing our guardian's sleep with making dinner"

"That sounds alright, but where could we…"

"There is that _family's_ restaurant on the other end of Cherry blossom Avenue"

Rei pondered over what was served at such places, usually meat product meals. She considered objecting, but then she decided to ask the previous question again.

"Why?"

"Well, I suppose its not often you and I have time to ourselves, and we are after all 'irresponsible teenagers who don't have any decency'" Shinji joked,

"What do you mean?" Rei didn't notice the tone of sarcasm in his voice, "Are we suppose to be?"

Shinji noticed how Rei interrupted the last sentence, and quickly he scurried up a reply to suit her. Shinji thought hard about his reply, usually he really didn't have do think this much about a reply to a girl, but in Rei's case, she was very gullible to believe everything in a literal sense.

"No, not really" Shinji said, "its just a joke, some call it sarcasm"

"Oh…I'm sorry" Rei reacted "I didn't understand"

Shinji shrugged it off "Don't worry, not a lot of people can tell the different if someone is being sarcastic or not"

Rei almost smiled, the sense of being unable to understand was replaced with the warm and good sense that she was only acting normally, or at least as normal as Shinji said people acted. The atmosphere in the car was now more relaxed, but this calm wasn't going to last. No less then 300 meters behind the Truneo, the black r34 was prowling behind, dimming its own headlights to only focus enough to see the Trueno.

Shinji noticed the flickering of the light by accident, a pair of low blue lights through what he assumed was heavy ran, but he wasn't able to react when the lights flash golden bright in the rearview mirror. The R34 floored power and sped up to the 86. Shinji's first reaction was to speed away from the car behind him. His second reaction was to realize that speeding in this weather was crazy.

"Rei, hold on" he said quickly, Shinji noticed that he managed to return the lights to a normal glare, but he couldn't see the car. That meant it was black painted. Shinji picked up speed and tried to loose it, but he noticed that the car was tailgating no less then 2 meters from his rear.

"What the hell does this guy want?" Shinji guessed the reasons, and realized that it was a road racer; he was looking for prey to hunt on the mountain, but in this rain? Shinji sped up again, he didn't completely floor it, and Shinji wasn't about to race with Rei in the car, in these conditions. Besides the fact that the ties wouldn't grip the road well, which further questioned the sanity of the driver behind him.

Shinji entered the next corner and slowed down dramatically, he didn't drift around the corner, and Shinji was too concerned about the weather to risk anything. Shinji cleared the corner and sped up again. The car behind him had actually drifted and was now slowing down.

"Okay" Shinji looked in his rear view mirror, "you want to play?"

Shinji had no choice now but to try loose this guy, cause he sure as hell wasn't going to leave him alone. Shinji put his 86 into gear and sped down to the next corner. Shinji spotted and carefully timed his approach; he decided to do everything a lot slower then normal.

Shinji hit the brakes and did what he normally did in a drift. To some amazement, he managed to get a drift happening, it wasn't really as fast as he had managed to do in his last race, but for these conditions, it was effective. Shinji noticed now that the rain made it easier to skid and his braking needed to be gentler. Shinji leveled out on the straightway and started to kick in some speed, it was a long straightway and Shinji hoped that it might be enough to outrun the bastard in that black car.

Despite the distance, his 86 didn't have the need power to outrun the R34 behind him. Shinji started calculating his breaking for the next corner. Shinji started to make his approach and braked lightly this time but Shinji hadn't encountered on what happened next.

The R34 continued and didn't brake at the same moment the Trueno did. As the tail end of the car started to swing out the Black car tapped the rear bumper and then braked. The results were only predictable. Shinji instantly reacted to the bump and tried to regain control of his Trueno; the car had been pushed in a direction that couldn't be controlled by the rear brakes. But Shinji was experienced in spinouts and pulled the parking brake and moved the wheel.

The Trueno skidded out of control as it entered the high speed corner, Shinji tried to hit the accelerator and try to push the car out of the side slide, but it was hopeless, The Trueno impacted and grazed its left side along the guardrail, it sparked as the screeching car rubbed the guardrail and the gravel slowed the car down. Shinji kept his eyes on the car that was performing the drift he was going to do, as the Trueno slowed down, he caught a glimpse of the tail of the other car, the 4 red eyes and in the center he saw a little emblem on the back

"GT-R…" Shinji growled, it took him only a second longer to realize what happened. He found Rei had held on, but the sudden impact made her hit her head on the dashboard. Shinji felt a chill in his spine and his mind raced a thought in only a second.

"Rei! Are you alright "

She didn't reply straight away, Shinji un-clicked his seat beat and moved Rei's head off the dashboard, she was bleeding at the head and her eyes were closed. It took a few more seconds, but Rei regained consciousness,

"Rei!? Can you hear me?"

"Shinji…are you okay?"

Shinji almost panicked, but he was not wasting any time; Rei needed medical attention.

"Hang on; I'm getting you to the hospital"

* * *

a/n IVE RETURNED

ok...moment over, my pc decided to screw up just after xmas and ive been saving up parts to do the repair work on my own (which i do, considering i built this sucker) i kinda felt this chapter really needed a booster, but i dunno how its ended up, ill let everyone decide that. Tell me what you think, keep reading and reviewing!

Republic of imac


	12. Episode 11: Damge control

After Evangelion

Episode 11: Damage control

Shinji couldn't have been any more fortunate when he was able to start his Trueno up and drive the car down to the hospital in Karasuyama-2. He drove slowly, but with the urgency that came with someone probably dying. It took almost forty minutes to get to the local hospital; Shinji blamed himself for every extra minute that it took to get the place. After he arrived, he went in with Rei as the hospital staff carried her to the examination room.

As far as he knew, some two hours later; she was fine. But they were going to keep her down all night at the hospital, something that he wished didn't happen. He had previously hoped that he could only get her inspected and check out and they could quietly return home, but it was Shinji's mind, exhausted of common sense, which wished for that to happen. Until Rei was cleared and put to bed in the overnight section, Shinji then spent the time in the waiting room; which didn't include the thirty or so minutes where Shinji was briefly interrupted from his sleep; a nurse followed on the request to move the badly damaged car from the emergency exit.

Now, some seven hours later, Shinji waited by the bedside of the former pilot of unit zero. For almost five hours watching over her while Rei slept off the painkillers she was given. Shinji just sat there, first angry at other driver, but slowly he started to open up to some other realizations; such as the very possibility that it was his fault too. He had after all brought Rei along for the purpose of keeping him company, and to prevent her being harmed further by Ritsuko's drunken behavior. Rei had questioned the reason for why she had to come along, despite her own objections and questions however, Rei did choose to come; but that wasn't good enough for Shinji, it was him who asked Rei to come.

Eventually his mind had concluded that he didn't fail Rei or anyone. His point of failure was when he accepted that driver's harassment as an excuse to race. It was this and the driver for his chaotic attempts to drive the Trueno off the road that resulted in Shinji failing to realize that he was putting Rei in the danger and the result came short the ultimate outcome.

He kept asking himself questions like what if he had just pulled over and confronted the driver himself. What if just ignored the taunting? What if he knew how to drive better? Was it really his fault? He answered the last one himself, given all the evidence he managed to find against himself, there was no alternate excuse for his actions; it was his fault.

Shinji sat at the chair hunched over the foot of the bed, staring at probably Rei's feet under the blanket, or some fixed point in space that only he could see. He hadn't slept, and he knew his mind would complain for a day or two in the aftermath. He managed to get a coffee down since he had arrived, but that was it. He was now thinking about what to do next, this event he knew wouldn't end with just a phone call.

"Mr. Ikari"

Shinji Ikari left his thoughts as he opened his eyes again. A very tired nurse looking down at the young man with the expression of dread and a look that only a nurse with a decade of experience dealing with deaths, and the aftermath results of such cursed events that sometimes shattered the lives of those who saw one slip away.

"There was a phone call for you, it's from a Ms. Katsuragi" the nurse said in her lightest voice. Shinji blinked briefly as the next problem emerged in front of him, it was now dawning on him, like the sun would in the next few hours; how he would have to start dealing with the aftermath of this accident all on his own. He had established that he couldn't blame the driver, even if he knew who it was, which Shinji at the moment forgot even existed. He looked down at his watch to answer his assumption.

He was correct, it was almost four in the morning and Misato probably panicked for a brief few minutes as she went to answer a yelling alarm clock and only find that both the children were gone, as well as the car. As Misato being who Shinji needed, she called the first number any mother would call; the hospital. Shinji nodded in acceptance and followed the nurse to the floor station at the hallway. The head nurse on duty, the woman was about the same age as Misato, picked up the phone and handed over to Shinji. The head nurse on duty had given Shinji one stern stare; passing judgment before pressing the hold button off.

"Misato…" Shinji spoke first, looking for a seat. Shinji heard no reply, wondering if the head nurse had put him through, or by the stern look, decided to hang up on his mother. It took a few more seconds before he heard the crackled reply of a woman who had dealt with enough death already.

"They told me what happened" Misato spoke, simply but elegantly, all five words were enough to bring Shinji's soul into a horrific dive towards the ground. Shinji was speechless, despite spending all of thirty seconds gaining whatever courage he had expected to have for this. Shinji finally found a chair that the head nurse offered the young man. He sat down as he quietly organized his thoughts and told his mother what happened.

"Rei only suffered a head concussion they tell me" Shinji said concluding "they said she can be released later this morning when the doctor on duty does another check"

"Okay" Misato replied on the other end "have you had any sleep?"

"A little bit, I'm sorry" Shinji admitted, he felt terrible even talking to Misato, both knew it, both couldn't do anything about it, both just didn't know what else to say.

"Shinji, come home please" Misato asked quietly "Rei isn't going to get better with you staring at her all night"

Shinji could've argued, but it was the tone of her last sentence that indicated that Misato briefly taken the time in one sentence to mentally lock this memory up, and deal with it later when she could. It was a rare talent in society, to be so cold in appearance, but to really protect the sanity of your mind. It was a skill that Misato learnt with exceptional outcomes, during her career as a professional officer. Misato had wept; but she knew there was work to be done before she could properly morn.

"Okay" Shinji said. Shinji hung up the phone and went to collect his things. He knew that Misato was forcing Shinji home, not because it was good for him, but because the FC was damaged and the Trueno itself was still damaged. It was still serviceable to drive. It felt stupid that Misato was placing the considerations of the customers over that of her own son. But it made all the more sense, the business still had to run; rain, snow, or accidents involving loved ones.

On his was home, Shinji drove quietly and slowly, it didn't matter to the traffic however since four in the morning wasn't exactly rush hour in the central business district. It was just so because Shinji was still in living fear of his own driving, such feelings would probably be gone by tomorrow morning, but he remembered that in four hours he would have to go to class and tell his friends… what could he tell them? The story was so simple that a small child could understand who was the real person at blame; Shinji was provoked into a fight he knew he would probably loose, not only that, he decided to gamble his lack of lack of skills, and worse yet; another life, on the slight, impossibility that he might win.

Shinji could guess the reactions from every single one of his friends in the worse case scenario; Hikari would be first, she would use this defining point in how dangerous driving like that was, as well as admonishing the rational to purposely putting a friend in danger; she'd disown him from being a friend. The next would be Kensuke and Toji; they would object to having him race a person that he couldn't beat and not even thinking twice about the fact that Rei was in the car, they would do their best to stop talking him.

Kazama, would also object, saying that he should've backed down under the conditions, even when forced, a road racer can back down if the conditions were too extreme for a fair race; at purposely risking Rei's life for pride of beating some random person. Kazama would submit with majority and abandon Shinji at the gate. Naoko wouldn't even bother yelling at him, the fact that Rei was put in any danger at all, to say the least that of a downhill drift battle in the rain. Even if the crash was the result of a deliberate crash by the other driver, it would be the end of any friendship with Shinji.

And finally Aisaka; she would look at Shinji with the look that no guy could defend himself against and demand that he never speak to him again. Her older brother would reinforce the fact and threaten anything up to death if he were to even see her by chance. Rei would probably not ever trust Shinji again, nor would Misato and Ritsuko; he would be banned from driving either car, even on a morning run. And what that left for Shinji? Nothing but pure void; alone with people around staring down at him, It was like his father manipulated fate and now Shinji was dealt a blow worse then any bodily harm would do.

He lost to some arrogant black car, crashed and got Rei in hospital? His day was over; his life as he knew it was over. The course of today would be his decent into hell and he would travel it alone.

* * *

Shinji drove down the narrow street, even more silently then he had when he had to sneak out for that infamous delivery run before his first race. He had the somber mood approximate of that for the death of beloved parents, his mood couldn't exactly sink any lower then he had it now. Expect now he wasn't as mentally confused as he was before. His drive took only twenty minutes, all of those minutes he used to prepare a speech to declare his acknowledgement of disownment.

He had now long since established that it was his fault that Rei was now in hospital, and he was certain that Shinji would be faced with his family and friends pointing a danger of anger and distrust towards him. Shinji however was only further exhausting his brain cells, his ability to remain conscious, and his ability to remain human. He had planned his day out; he would do everything normally, absorbing the blows from everyone, he would do his best to live out the day, and have it end with him leaving the tofu shop.

He arrived finally to his soon-to-be-former home; he pulled into the driveway of the tofu shop, he was scared and shocked to find distraught looking Misato standing by the doorway. The eyes started at Shinji, an accusing stare that ended any form of courage that Shinji tired to show. Shinji stopped the car and turned the engine off, it took all of his strength to get out of the car and confront his mother.

"I'm home" Shinji put on his bravest voice as he got out of the car. Jut in front of the headlights, Misato looked on in astonishment, but her eyes didn't focus on Shinji, it was at the damage the black Trueno had taken. It was similar damage to the previous race, but the passenger side bore the scars and dints of what happened, a quarter of the paint had grinded off, leaving a brash grey streak along the length of the car. Misato didn't look up, except tracing her eyes down the left side to see how much damage was really there. Misato's mind was more focused on the amazement that they only got away, alive, with just a badly damaged side door and grinded paint.

Misato then looked up at Shinji, the young man looked as thou he hadn't washed for a week, his clothes were ruffled up and his hair was a mess. It was normal for Shinji to give very little care for his appearance, but this was out of the ordinary, even for Shinji. Misato saw in Shinji's eyes straight away the displeasure and living fear that he had created for himself after thinking for too long without talking to someone. Misato could clearly see he was blaming himself, and she felt as thou Shinji were expecting her to crucify her.

Misato couldn't deal with it for now; she had a job to do that robbed her of an ability to respond straight away to this crisis. Alternatively, Misato felt like sending Ritsuko out to do the delivery, but it was one of those mornings where Misato felt she had to do it for herself, that and her mind probably didn't occur to think of that option. Misato thought for a moment how to approach the situation and decided that for the moment, Shinji needed sleep, and she needed to do the next delivery. Ritsuko, in a prior agreement would be forbidden from approaching Shinji on the topic, even if he brought it up. Misato looked up at Shinji again and gained control of her feelings again.

"We'll talk later" Misato said "I'm going to do the morning delivery"

Shinji nodded agreeably, and at the same time, wrongly translating the reply from Misato in a more dejected manner. He knew that Misato couldn't deal with him because of the pressure to do her job. But the lack of emotion she showed was her sign that Shinji had crossed the line of a mere accident, to an outright attempt to hurt her feelings.

Shinji walked to the door where Ritsuko proceeded to walk out with a crate. She almost ignored Shinji, not even looking at her, as if she was more concerned about the weight of the crate and getting it into the car. Shinji ignored that and he decided to not even wait to see off the car. He walked into the building and made a silent walk to his room. He didn't even bother with his clothes; he just fell flat onto the bed and feel asleep in minutes.

* * *

Class droned on slower then usual, the rainy day weather from yesterday had gone, but the cloud cover remained. It was a lot cooler now, and the classroom had since been vented of the sweat and smell of the previous day. The usual crowd of students for the early rush was in today, some wielding umbrellas, some of those were wondering if it was even worth it bringing it along.

However, by the later half of the morning, the latecomers came in with the first fragments of information regarding Rei Ayanami. It first was noticed when Shinji showed up without Rei in tow; it had been established in the brief two weeks that Rei and Shinji walked to school together. The next indication came when Sakuraba was in the front office from an errand she was set up to do. Sakuraba claimed to linger around after she heard a phone call to the school desk, from a woman called Ritsuko, saying that Rei wouldn't be coming in, as she had been sent to hospital after a minor accident on the stairs.

This added by the silence of Shinji not answering questions regarding the condition of Rei. This gave everyone in the class a reason to ponder at the evidence, without any solid theory, the ideas began to expand. The class intelligent type's and gossipers took the evidence into account. As strangely as it was, the students of the class were doing the same things intelligence agency analysts would do to look at gathered data. They looked at the evidence and strung a story to it, and played with it until they exhausted all the possible scenarios.

The first clear evidence was the absence of Rei coming in with Shinji, which had sparked as odd at first. The next phase was the investigation was the reason why Rei was in hospital, for a minor accident. That could mean anything from being hit in the head by a random object, right up to falling down the staircase; as if the phone call actually was true. The possible injuries she might have were unlimited. However what made this suspicious was the absence of comment from Shinji Ikari. He must've known by now at least that Rei was hurt. Did he even care? Did he wonder where Rei was this morning? Did he cause the injuries?

It was these sorts of questions that were the catalyst to the birth of rumors that now were spreading to the class. It's often wondered why the worst story about someone tends to be the most interesting story. It tends to allow one to imagine the person in a very alternate manner. Many people wouldn't actually think of Shinji of violently bashing girls at random, but the thought had passed their minds as least once. It was however agreed the half or so second later after judgment past that the possibility was false and shouldn't even have been considered.

It would have not surprised Shinji at all that at the centre of the thesis creators, were his own two friends, Kazuma and Naoko. They too had the common sense to not believe in the immediately worst case scenario, but people enjoyed hearing a horrific story of Shinji betraying Rei's trust. These stories may have continued, but Hikari had returned from the student body council meeting and upon learning of the first gossip, Hikari would've almost literally belted them to the floor and screamed common sense.

Hikari did however know about the rumors, no thanks to meeting with Naoko in the girls room while she explained to another girl in class 2-D the reasons for a phone call from Shinji's mother regarding Rei. Hikari didn't react in the way of a heavy explosive on glass, but she withheld her anger, to be let out later at Naoko, in private and where nobody would see her gut the class gossiper.

Hikari instead walked to Shinji's desk. Kensuke and Toji were no doubt across the street in the bakery looking at last minute additions to their breakfast, most likely unaware of the rumors in the classroom.

"I heard what happened" Hikari said

"If I'm going to be blown up because of what I've been hearing all morning" Shinji spoke for the first time today "then ill tell you… it's my fault!"

The class turned to hear that line from Shinji, paying attention to his elevated voice. It made it clearer, or actually less clear on what was going on, now it sounded like Hikari knew, and was abusing Shinji already. Shinji himself had actually made it worse as Hikari didn't actually come to the assumption that he was to blame for the accident; instead he now made it sound like he was involved, and even caused Rei to end up in hospital.

Hikari didn't know how to reproach Shinji here and only decided to consider her assumptions now. Hikari decided to not push it further, doing so would only annoy him, or further invoke him to burst out at Hikari in a shouting match that would indefinitely create a scene, and score damaging hits to Shinji's reputation as a mildly mannered and quiet hard worker.

"We'll talk about this later" Hikari said, with a stern voice that spoke her inherent anger at Shinji's raging hate towards her. It was enough to make Shinji stop staring at her with the threat of fighting there and then. Hikari walked off and started class announcements, Shinji sat down and contemplated the disappearance of his friendships today.

* * *

In Sousuke's Garage, the Black 86 was up on the lift being raised so the underside of the Toyota could be inspected. Sousuke stopped the lift so it was high enough so he could inspect the suspension on the left side. After a quick glance of it, he'd determined that it had been cracked along the bars, and the spring looked like it broke. Otherwise, this was amazing the only part of the car to suffer internal damage; the rest was only cosmetic.

Misato and Ritsuko looked on as the mechanic from Tokyo-2 inspected the dents, at the same time wondering how much time it would take to panel beat the whole passenger side.

"Well, Shinji managed to prevent any further damage, but it doesn't look like it's his fault after all"

"What do you mean?" Ritsuko asked; all morning she had been adherent that Shinji had decided to risk racing in this weather without considering the danger, and screwed up. Misato defended Shinji in his absence; neither girl knew why Shinji suddenly screwed up. Misato was sure that he was sane enough to not just start driving down the hill in this weather, and he had Rei in the car.

Misato had returned only minutes after Shinji left for school; which saddened her. She had realized that she hadn't actually confronted Shinji to see how he was coping, her concern this morning was towards the adventives need to continue business as usual. It was after she got blown up by the Sohma Family hot springs lady, that Misato realized that for the first time in a long time, Misato was acting like a commander again. Her mind for some apparent and highly unusual reason was more concerned about delivering the tofu then the mental well being of the driver.

Misato made a note to pick Shinji up from school today and talk to him. It wasn't his day to work for the store, and with Rei, and the 86 out, Shinji was free from training with Rei. It meant she had time talk to Shinji alone, and that was what both of them needed,

Sousuke looked back at Ritsuko wondering if she was actually expecting Shinji to have screwed up on his own; was the doctor serious?

"Well, there is one thing about this damage that makes no sense" Sousuke said as he stepped out from under the car, he walked down to the back of the car, Misato followed him.

In daylight, it was much clearer the black Trueno had its passenger side basically grinded into the guardrail; the streaks of grey along the length of the car had the omitting look of scars. The pink lettering was gone; the characters for 'Misato' were was all that really remained of the car paint job, and the black paint which buffered the scraping for all of 1 second. Sousuke however paid attention to another dint on the driver side on the back bumper.

"At first I wondered how Shinji managed to stop it" Sousuke said "but this dint on the back isn't what would normally happen if you were hitting a guardrail.

"Another car?" Misato guessed correctly,

"Force hit too" Sousuke said, judging by how the car was hit here.

Misato pondered the acts and came out to realize that this conclusion made a lot more sense then Shinji randomly loosing control of the car. He was driving along, and another car came along and basically rammed Shinji from behind, the combination of the wet weather and the relative light weight of the car; Shinji actually did better then anyone could have expected.

Recovery from those sorts of conditions was possible; But Shinji was pretty lucky and pretty skilled to just get the car off with minor damage. Misato wondered why she didn't think of this possibility, the hospital didn't say anything to her about how the accident happened, and just that Shinji slid against a guardrail and injured the girl in the passenger seat.

"Shinji is going to think this is his fault" Misato said "it really wasn't, he did all he could"

Sousuke invited the two women back to his office to talk about this further; an invitation which only took a minute to get them into his office. Misato and Ritsuko sat down and looked up at a glance briefly at the collection of things the mechanic owned before talking.

"Shinji is in a delicate position now" Sousuke said "he is now suffering two problems, both can be overcome, but it will be hard"

"What is your Thesis then?" Ritsuko felt as though she had enough of Sousuke pretending to be the best psychologist in town, and two bars above her at all times. Sousuke was aware that Ritsuko was skilled in the matter, but he didn't know it use to be her job and one of several qualifications; however Sousuke judged that she didn't seem to apply her skill and training a lot in real life, unless she was told what it was. Sousuke decided to restrain his thoughts again and pick the hairs on that later.

"Shinji first has a bit of an ego" Sousuke said, and continued before Misato could even reply "…now I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but I think Shinji accidentally assumed that he could beat off this person last night. But from what you've told me; Shinji isn't ready to admit he was beaten"

"So?" Misato "what about now?"

"He probably figured that he couldn't actually race him, he had Rei in the car. So I'm guessing he was pushed into the battle"

"Pushed?"

"It's a term used in road racing" Sousuke explained "the word itself is more a description of the meaning actually, simply put it's a competitor who forces someone on the road to race him there and then"

"In the wet weather?" Misato asked,

"Sure, probably made it easier for the other car" Sousuke continued "there are two types of people who do this, people who chase the car at the same pace, which is pretty acceptable… they also do it on fair terms surprisingly, and then there is whoever raced Shinji last night. These people are usually cowardly drivers and they like nothing more then to claim fame, even if the conditions are unfair I'm guessing he flashed his headlights and probably bumped Shinji once, enough to push him into racing"

Misato recalled that the Silvia that Shinji raced in the previous week had done the same thing, but Shinji was well aware of that, and it was actually on fair conditions. Touya she recalled had a passenger as well. Further, it was a battle Shinji could've backed out of, had he chosen. Sousuke motioned the two women to come to his office. They did so and in two minutes they were sitting at the table.

"Shinji's other mental concern is he has really screwed up, I mean he really did something to completely out of the ordinary, and his end result ended up in putting his cousin in hospital" Sousuke wasn't aware that was false fact, and he had assumed that anyway "Shinji probably is too young too realize that he did better then any other drivers would normally do; But I'm guessing that some 'well timed emotions' have done made Shinji really afraid about driving or confronting you"

What annoyed Ritsuko was he said it dead on and was right. Shinji suffered similar drawbacks from his initial Evangelion sorties and he had overcome them. But that was because Misato had stepped in and brought Shinji out of his repetitive cycle of thinking of nothing but self hate. Misato would have to same one to bring Shinji out this depression.

"What about the other racer?" Ritsuko steered the subject to something less touchy,

"That…" Sousuke said with a pause, before it finally hit him. The previous day at the café, he met the guy… and saw the car "will be harder. I sadly know who this is and what he wants"

"Who is it?"

"Ryosuke, he is a student teacher transferring to this area" Sousuke said "I heard that he wanted to challenge Shinji head on"

"What does he want?"

"I don't know, he didn't seem like he was interested in his racing ability, just Shinji himself" Sousuke said "all I know is, Ryosuke has a black GTR-34 Skyline, and if what Shinji says is accurate, that was who raced him last night"

It took ages to figure out what Sousuke implied from his Sherlock homes style deduction

"He was targeting Shinji on purpose?" Misato asked,

"That is one aspect" Sousuke said "But something tells me that he isn't just interested in Shinji's driving ability"

"But what other reason would Shinji be the target?" Misato spoke in a complete contradiction to her real thoughts 'What is he getting at?'

"Misato-san, Doctor Akagi, I'm not a real expert in history, but is their something that I should know?"

Both Misato and Ritsuko took a very long time to answer the question, so bluntly was it put to them. Did Sousuke really know who they were; was he fooling them into telling him? Both women couldn't discuss this without deciding to expose their secret. Misato decided to improvise here and do her best to get them out of a sticky situation.

"For the moment, I don't believe you're ready to know" Misato said honestly and in a matter of fact tone before turning serious "both me and Shinji have been and wish to remain as far distant from those times as is physically possible"

Sousuke nodded, knowing how carefully Misato was trying to get herself out of this mess. Sousuke didn't have any intentions to force any of them to do something that would end up affecting his two customers. Sousuke decided that today wasn't the day to learn the great Misato/Shinji Secret.

"I understand" Sousuke spoke "Please forgive me for intruding on a sensitive subject"

"That's quite alright" Misato nodded, seeing the opening out of this awkward situation and taking it. She decided that Sousuke was indeed an excellent judge of character, it was so strange however for a mechanic to be so… Misato thought about it for awhile and noted how odd it was for him to be so smart on matters that your average grease monkey wouldn't know the first thing of.

Ritsuko decided to remain silent, Sousuke just opened a very helpful window for him to escape this, and Misato managed to use her brain for once and steer the conversation towards a conclusion.

"I suppose I've taken up enough of your time" Sousuke said "Come, I'll give you back your other car.

The trio walked out of the office and outside to the small parking spaces outside his shop. On the end of the 3 parking spaces that Sousuke's shop could afford; the Blue and White FC was under a weather blanket. Sousuke had taken roughly three hours to fix the broken headlights, an effort that seemed to make the point of the repair pointless. Misato was impressed with the turn around time that he had accomplished on the car, although she was willing to take the car back unfixed, Misato was glad that wasn't required.

"Where else are you going today?" Sousuke asked before Misato got in the Driver seat.

"The Hospital, Rei is ready to be discharged" Misato replied, adding in thought 'And to get the bloody doctor a job like she should have'

* * *

Shinji Ikari's went from bad to worse, and that's only if you remembered that he didn't sleep more then 3 hours in the last 36, and that his day so far included meeting an disturbingly arrogant teacher, whom no less then eight hours later ran him off the road and caused his friend, and possibly blood relative to end up with a visit to the hospital. Then there was today, where it went from worse to something akin to an epic disaster that only were normally home to the imaginative tall tails his fellow students discussed at lunch time.

Shinji dealt with worse, that's all he could tell himself right now. His excuse for ignoring the pain he should be experiencing. Both Shinji kept forgetting some rather hard realities. Where as in NERV he actually didn't give much of a damn if he died or not. Because of his father's influence on his life, his internal hate resulted in an early teens best left unremembered.

Around him were friends, people who didn't care for his flaws, didn't demand much of him, who had care for him. It was these truths that, while he should've been getting them, he wasn't receiving messages. All morning Shinji's depressing 'slump' was noticeable by everyone in the classroom, Hikari pondered quietly as he observed Shinji's time elapse collapse onto the table. Unlike normal where he would slump onto his desk and quietly start to fall asleep. Shinji's eyes told her that there was something on his mind, and with all the information around her, the rumors and the hard facts; it was starting to make sense to her.

By lunch time, Hikari managed to do her own guess work and come with a conclusion that would've made the best detective proud. All she needed to do was catching Shinji alone and force him to explain. The hard part was getting Shinji alone and out of the way of the class. It was recently uncommon for Shinji to go out and sit alone, he had Rei to baby sit after all and that wasn't exactly something to look forward to. Rei had a strange habit of talking about something, then going off on a tangent and start talking about something between the topic and something else, but before Rei could take the next step, either Hikari or Shinji had to shut her up.

People wondered what was so controversial that made Shinji and their class representative panic suddenly; it certainly had nothing to do with the usual gossip that occupied the lunchroom chatter. Naoko and Kazuma learnt in a few days that while some topics about Shinji were okay, for some reason, whatever Rei said, it worried him, and sometimes made her shut up in the most extreme of methods. Hikari too seemed to be seriously worried.

Hikari however had a daring plan, and this worked in more advantage because he didn't need to hang around Rei today. Shinji was slumped on his desk, despite lunchtime having started only 10 minutes ago, Toji, Kensuke and Kazuma wondered how to awaken the dead.

"Ikari-san" she pronounced with her Class Rep voice.

The general affect of the tone and addressing managed to score the attention of Shinji. He shot awake and looked up or really at a piece of paper a few inches from his face.

"Ikari-san, I need you to take these papers down to the front office"

"Nani?"

Hikari silently grumbled to herself that Shinji was so thick. "You need to learn how to take responsibility of tasks I normally do, in the advent that I'm not here to perform the job of class rep"

"What are you talking about?" Shinji first enquired, "You're here today, so why does it matter? And why is this the first time that you've ever done this?"

Hikari strained a nerve in her forehead wondering why Shinji was so persistent in not doing the job assigned to him. "Just take the paper and stop arguing!"

"Nani?" Shinji repeated the question.

"Now!"

Shinji took a deep sigh then and walked off with the bundle of papers in his hand. His first thought was of why Hikari was pushing him today; well there was no mystery there actually, Hikari by now would've broken to the rumors and believed the most conservative version of the 'accident'.

Shinji sighed and walked off. Giving up and following Hikari's orders was the path of least resistance in any matter and there was no need to make her any more angry at him then she supposedly was. Shinji continued to make his path down to the school facility office. Shinji briefly wondered what sort of paperwork was in the folder. It was a simple white folder with the letters '2-A' written on it in red highlighter. The folder looked worm out, which was probably why the borders had tape applied to it.

'Why do I have to a simple paper job for her?' Shinji sighed 'and what is she talking about 'I won't be here to perform the job' business.

Shinji's thought process took over and in order to maximize the capacity of the brain, he started to subconsciously walk down to the office without really looking ahead. Fortunately this was a short lived experience as only 10 seconds.

Aisaka was annoyed that she left her wallet in the classroom. She wondered for what was perhaps the 1000th time why the school 1; Decided to sell only a small supply of bread rolls. 2; why it was that they never seemed to buy enough to meet demand, and 3. Why such rolls were not free already. She knew that by the time she returned to her class, retrieved her wallet and made her way down to the canteen again, after grudging her way thought a wild pack of boars, which for her was the best way to describe the lunch 'queue'

Aisaka and Shinji managed to time both their thoughts and escapes from their surroundings long enough to ram head first into each other. The results were predicable.

"Owe!" Aisaka rubbed her head after falling on the floor.

"Are you alright?" Shinji said first after he got up on his feet again. Several first year girls were laughing outside their classroom at the scene.

"I'm sorry" Aisaka bowed, still not aware of who she bumped into.

"Its okay, Aisaka-san" Shinji sighed, "what are you doing here?"

"Shinji-san!" Aisaka yelped in surprise "what are you doing here?"

Both held a silent pause between the two before Shinji continued deciding to answer the question, even if he wouldn't get his answered.

"Just doing some errands for the boss" Shinji gestured the folder of papers,

"I see"

Few minutes later, Shinji, who now had Aisaka in tow; was at the front desk of the facility office. The girl at the desk, a 3rd year by the looks of things gave both Shinji and the girl behind him a rather devious look as if she instantly disapproved of their friendship. It was something that Shinji didn't really need at the moment.

"The day reports for class 2-A" Shinji said without any feeling as he put the folder on the table with the elegance of a disliked toy. This started yet another fight that Shinji really didn't need.

"Excuse me" the girl at the desk said "this is the job of the class representative of your homeroom, which I recall is Hikari Hokari"

It was both the words and the delivery of that sentence that annoyed Shinji; as if though he couldn't begin to live to the standards this fellow student set.

"Listen," Shinji started "the class rep ordered me to do it and that's that okay? Now I'm tired, I have half a dozen problems on my agenda, and I don't need someone, even you, telling me how to follow orders"

Shinji turned around and walked out of the office and left the secretary too shocked to counter argue the man now out of the room. Aisaka hurried to catch up to Shinji, who was almost marching his every footstep back to; but he wasn't going to the classroom. Aisaka worried momentarily and decided to brave any yelling that might get inflicted with. She was worried about Shinji and there was definitely something else afoot.

"Shinji-kun, please wait" she cried out as Shinji exited the building. Shinji turned and did indeed wait for her to catch up. He took a moment to breathe some silence and thought into his mind.

"I'm Sorry Aisaka-san" Shinji sighed his head down and continued out to sit down by the tree "I've been kind of wound up this morning and that girl just snapped my limit"

"Are you alright?"

"No…" Shinji said honestly "it's just a lot of things"

"The accident?"

"How did you know that?!" Shinji spun around in amazed shock,

"I remember my brother got a phone call from your mother this morning, your cousin is absent this morning and the rumors I've been hearing made me think that something bad happened" she explained,

Shinji slumped down the side of the tree with all the grace of a sack of potatoes. He had to admit here and now that Aisaka was one seriously smart girl, like Hikari, but more… approachable. But before that part of his mind could relax, his reflect actions put him into a panic and his mind now wondered what sort of reaction would come from her. It was clear that she could have a negative impact upon learning the truth. It was this that made Shinji worry; Aisaka was a friend, and one he already owed a lot too, was she going to throw it all out?

Aisaka saw the worried look in his face, and first wondered why looking at her was making Shinji even more depressed then now. The next thought processed made her think brutally towards the rumor saying that Shinji hurt Rei on purpose. These two contradicted; Shinji was a skilled driver and he definitely wouldn't put Rei in harms way, even within reason.

Aisaka knelt down onto her knees, and looked at Shinji's eyes, which now noticed Aisaka's blue ones look at him intensely. She tried to decide of his intentions last night were to harm Rei or not, and further why Rei was there at all.

"Shinji-kun" Aisaka started, "Was it really an accident?"

"Hey! There you are!" yelled a voice off to the distant towards the building.

Both Shinji and Aisaka turned to see Hikari walking towards them with a powerful stride. Shinji grunted with the realization of the fight about to begin and he turned to get up and face it.

Hikari didn't even notice Aisaka for a full 10 seconds, but when she did; her instant reaction was to wonder why this girl was here and what she had to do with Shinji

"Okochiba-san" Hikari looked at Aisaka "What are you doing here"

"I know about the car accident alright?" Aisaka snapped back in reply, usually a timid girl, by reflex thou, she took the attack from Hikari like a punch to the face.

"Hikari-san, Aisaka-san" Shinji jutted into the conversation before it went out of hand "Will you both calm down"

"Will you shut up" Hikari said "All morning you've been mopping on your desk like a man on death row, now what the hell is wrong with you"

Shinji felt as though he was effectively corned, despite the fact he had an open field behind his back, and over the fence, at least 4 miles of land before he hit the lake. While he found Aisaka's calm approach to the question welcoming to the situation, it was evaporated now that Hikari was on the scene and making everyone nervous with her honest, but brash approach to shaking information out of a body.

Before Shinji could reply in any matter, Hikari turned to Aisaka and fired the first round.

"What do you mean a car accident?" Hikari directed the question towards Aisaka "What do you know about this?"

"I know okay!" Aisaka replied, now heated by the debate "I've heard the rumors okay, but their lies! Shinji-kun's car is in my brother's repair shop!"

Hikari was truly confused, here was a girl who was both a lot closer to Shinji then she knew of, and she had an important piece of information to the situation. Hikari decided before fists were thrown, to lay back on verbal abusing this girl.

"Shinji, is this true?" Hikari asked

"Yes" Shinji said "Rei was in the car with me, and something happened" Shinji thought the detail of the Black GT-R was pointless.

"Why was she in the car?" Hikari then reverberated her question "Why were you driving like that in the rain?!"

Shinji was now annoyed, he had been expecting this attack all day and now it was coming, he didn't have the urge to accept it like a man, but he had the urge to fight back and clear his name.

"It's not my damn fault alright!" he shot back, both frightening and shocking Hikari and Aisaka. "As for why Rei was in the car, it was because both Misato and Ritsuko were drunk out of their skulls and I couldn't just leave her there with them…"

Toji, Kensuke, Naoko and Kazama all arrived on the scene at that moment, wondering at the absence of Hikari and Shinji at the same time. The discovery of Aisaka yelling at Hikari made them all dash for the tree and to try stopping the fight before it got out of hand. It came to surprise everyone therefore when Shinji yelled.

"What really happened Shinji?" Aisaka repeated her question.

Hikari looked over at the girl and saw she wasn't kidding about how serious she was taking this. It kept her disconcerted that this was the first time she had noticed Asiaka as little more then just a background character in the school.

"We need to know Shinji" Hikari said "the rumors are only going to get worse unless we don't stop them"

"Alright" Shinji gasped a breath, "I'll tell you, but this cant beyond this group" Shinji examined everyone in the group, giving a strong glare off to Naoko and Kazuma whom would spread an alternated version of the story. Shinji started to explain slowly, the reason to how Rei came to be in his 86. Shinji noticed that Hikari nodded approvingly a he explained that part of the story.

Shinji then went to explain the trip up to the hot springs, minus the lengthy conversation with Rei about what Shinji had almost forgotten about. He then started to explain the whole battle, or what was of it. Initially pushed, Shinji's short fuse didn't last long and before he knew it, he was racing the mysterious car in the worst of conditions. Both Kensuke, and surprisingly Aisaka responded strongly to that statement. Eventually, Shinji explained the hit on the rear bumper and how he ended up spinning out, managing to angle the car to only suffer a scared slash of paint grind on the passenger side. Explaining that he managed to avoid a direct head on impact, which for the 86's occupants would've meant instant death by head trauma, or a slower painful death by internal bleeding.

"Shinji, are you okay?" Aisaka was the first to ask,

"No" Shinji replied bluntly "I took all night to figure out how this would play out, and I was right, you all were disappointed in me"

It couldn't have been more powerful blow to everyone, especially Naoko and Kazuma who both spread the popular rumor that Shinji did it on purpose, hearing the truth really hit it home how weak Shinji really was under the strain of reality; nobody didn't know how to answer this without risking further displacement on Shinji's part.

"Of course we're angry at you!" Hikari shouted, spiking everyone's nerves for a few seconds. "All you could've done was tell us and none of these rumors would've gotten out of hand!"

"Nani?" was all that Shinji could murmur, wondering where Hikari was heading with it.

"We've all been through worse then this, don't tell me that we'll judge you on something that wasn't your fault" Hikari yelled at his face "Are we really your friends, or are you going to treat us like complete strangers?!"

"Hikari-san" Toji said, feeling as though it was time to intervene "This isn't the time for a blowout"

"Shut up Toji" Hikari replied harshly "Shinji still doesn't get it"

"Get what?" Shinji said, thoroughly confused.

"We don't hate you for being yourself" Hikari replied "Get it through your skull, we're here to help you"

Everyone was stunned silence, even Hikari who now finally had her composer control take effect and restrain her from further yelling at Shinji. Everyone looked awkwardly at each other and then looked at Shinji who was somewhere between breaking down, and relieving stress in a big way.

"You did the right thing" Kensuke said first "you saved Rei, that's what is important now"

Everyone nodded in agreement, Aisaka simply smiled. Hikari was still frowning, but in the odd way that indicated she was pleased with him.

"Shinji-kun" Hikari said "go back to class and confront your problems; you're a man aren't you?

Shinji nodded, and decided that then and there that it was not going to be like before. He already stated along time before today that he couldn't run away anymore, he was for one running out of places to run to. This was suppose to be the first place he rebuild his life, he couldn't live in Osaka where he learnt how to make tofu, he couldn't stay in any of the Tokyo's because it was too easy for people to figure out who he was. He had to make his stand, and much to his amazement, his friends were there to back him up.

* * *

Misato's day had gone a lot better then she expected, given the negative start on it, now that she had time to think about it. No less then 9hrs ago, her day outlook looked so bleak that it was impossible to imagine. But ever since her visit to Sousuke's repair shop did everything finally start to click into order.

After learning from a skilled professional that it wasn't Shinji's fault and even better, that he prevented Rei from being killed; Misato actually felt a lot better about herself. Despite the fact it was her fault to begin with; something that took half a morning and 2 cups of green tea at a mechanic's shop to figure out. Misato now felt guilt for not comforting Shinji when he needed it, or at least asking him not to show to school.

But the biggest highlight for Misato was during the hospital visit. After one look at Rei's charts, and seeing how things were run at the hospital, it didn't take no more then a minute for Ritsuko to change her mind and re-enter the workforce. The problem came from when they decided to get go though routine checks for Rei, that Ritsuko noted with no small disgust that the people on staff there were nothing more the amateurs at the game, and whoever was assigned to over see Rei's case was clearly just out of Osaka-2 University of medicine. Ritsuko's first command was to order a new batch of tests to be done, which would require Rei to stay an extra night.

Misato now had the task of talking to Shinji; and that was the reason why she was parked across the street in the FC, waiting for Shinji and company to come out. Misato managed to get another hour's worth of sleep while she waited, something of a relief to her body which hadn't had a single cup of coffee, or a single beer today.

* * *

The bell rang at 3:10 that afternoon, ending homeroom for the day and relieving the students of an exceedingly boring day in class. As Hikari had promised to Shinji, Naoko and Kazuma managed to get a fresh rumor set out about how Shinji spun out of control while driving his car. The whole student body of the school knew that Shinji drove; about half had seen his first two races; Shinji spinning out in rain, made it sound like he was practicing in the rain, Rei simply being there because she wanted to observe.

In terms of status, it was going to drop Shinji's prestige as a good driver, but by this point, Shinji honestly couldn't care anyway.

"Hey Shinji-kun" Naoko yelled from the door, "hurry up already"

Shinji finished collecting his things and started for the door. Outside, Hikari and Naoko had been waiting for him to come, Kensuke and Asiaka had decided to run off after Shinji took his sweet time packing up; both had store duty.

As everyone walked, Shinji felt something that made him think that today was not over just yet. He knew why, while he got lucky with his friends, he still had to confront Misato. That prospect was a better feeling now that Shinji's friends had managed to cheer him up for now. Exactly how he would be able to pull it off him still was figuring it out, he somehow felt that his chances were improved the chances that he would make his way out of this alive.

"Hey Shinji-kun" Naoko asked "Don't you have the day off?"

"I do why?"

"How about we go to town for awhile" Toji said "get your mind off today"

The prospect sounded okay, and it had been awhile. However Shinji knew that the final argument wouldn't end here, he still had one major stepping stone to making thought today, it was at home, and it was surely waiting for him.

"Sorry, I have to go home" Shinji said "I've still got to face Misato about this thing today, and I want to get it out of the way as soon as possible"

"Hey!" Toji said "since when does the Shinji I know run into danger"

"Toji…" Shinji rebutted "I have to do this, I can't run away, and you know it… besides of which where do you suppose I'll sleep tonight if I can't get this dilemma repaired in a hurry?"

Naoko jumped onto his back and whispered loud enough into his ear that everyone heard the badly timed joke "You could always bunk at my place Shinji-kun…"

Kazuma spat his drink of coffee out in hearing that.

"Naoko-san, is this REALLY the time for jokes?" Hikari said, no even aware it was a joke.

"Relax girl" Naoko released herself from Shinji, who was disturbed greatly from the disposition of having that heard that one line. By mutual accord thou; everyone decided to ignore the comment, being the best method of forgetting it; by the time everyone got to the gate that had been accomplished.

"See you tomorrow Shinji-kun" Naoko said, again apologizing for scaring him.

Shinji sighed before turning for his home, when he heard the roar of a familiar engine rev once. Everyone in the group and other students in the area turned to look for the car, just as anyone would at the sound of an out of the ordinary noise. At first, they couldn't immediately as all the vehicles parked on the street appeared the same 2 or 4 door family cars that parked themselves there for no reason.

A second Rev managed to help Shinji isolate the direction and look at… a white and blue FC.

"Is that Misato in the FC?" Kazuma looked intensely at the vehicle for a moment, deciding it was the same FC that Dr Akagi owned.

"Shinji-kun?" Hikari asked.

"Yea, I guess I will be seeing you all later"

Shinji rapidly made distance with group, then slowed down, realizing now he had to approach this with a calm demeanor and be ready to attack whatever Misato through at him. Before he knew it, he was at the car.

'Now or never' he said to himself.

"Hey Shinji" Misato said, in a tone that surprised him for a moment; the battle of wits had begun.

"Misato… I"

"Don't talk kid, just throw your bag in, get in the car and let's go already"

Shinji took the first defeat well, and did as he was told. He strapped himself in and waited for Misato to leave, which didn't take to long. It wasn't for another few minutes before Misato started speaking,

"Before you ask why I picked you from school, it's because I wanted to okay."

"Right" Shinji said 'why is she acting like this, am I going to get a chance to explain myself?'

Misato realized that she actually caused a stalemate in this conversation, saying anything more would make it appear to Shinji as thou he was being blamed for the accident, to which she had no intentions to do so. Backing down would give the same impression.

"Shinji, let me back up for a sec" Misato said "Ritsuko and Rei wont be home tonight, how about we go get something to eat on the around the lake.

"You can't afford that" Shinji said in reply, at the same in an off balance thanks to Misato's skilled move to do so.

"I know, for punishment for wrecking out car, your paying"

* * *

"Shinji, me and Ritsuko did some investigating today about the accident" Misato said after she finished her third taiyaki "We sort of spent all day figuring out what happened, and I think I'm starting to understand it"

"Okay?" Shinji said, he hadn't had anything to eat, the amount of cash on him assured only Misato ate.

"What I want to know is what will you do about it?" Misato said out of the blue.

A silence insured.

"What do you mean?"

"Are you going challenge this bastard or not?"

* * *

A/N: after a very very long hiatius, im back. and i wont even begin to explain all the details. Anyway, after the launch in december, a little accident sorta occoured, and now i sorta have this webshow running (refer to my profile for details), anyway, that started up and took a real load of time away from me. in terms of this story, this chapter has been sitting around since feburary, slowly ive added tibits on as i went. I plan to change that for now, the webshow is not properely established, and i can restart work on the two or three stories i have running here.

Hoplfully with this chapter out of the way, i can start afresh on this arc of AE:TSC.


	13. Episode 12: Threat gesture

After Evangelion

Episode 12: Threat gesture

Shinji's general understanding of Misato was again changed that afternoon when she managed to forgive his accident and then permit him to take up the challenge of defeating this guy. Having the whole evening to themselves when they returned home; Shinji retold the story as best he could as for why Rei was in the car and explain the whole incident in as best detail Misato, whom he was not aware was already aware of the key facts, and really was only listened to get the required confirmation of the evidence she'd acquired in his absence. After that; Shinji's energy was near the ragged edge of empty, and to that effect, Misato agreed she would cover a full day's tofu delivery for the first time in a long while, on the mere requirement that Shinji honestly needed the sleep after his two day marathon.

The next day marked a return to normality, well… as best as you could get for Shinji at least. Rei was finally released and sent home, with her to continue school the next week, but to continue her driving lessons as of today. Shinji sure now that Riksuto was a slave driver when it came to Rei's life; she could drive, but she hadn't mastered any form of drifting yet, so why would Rei be able to drive now? In any regard, the FC was repaired now and that meant his excuses were useless. He could possibly get Kensuke and Kazuma to live up on their deal and aid him in practice that was the main task of today.

Now Shinji found himself driving the white and blue FC for the morning delivery run. It was strange to believe that the last few days really happened. It didn't matter in any regard; Misato decided that a prolonged absence from work would hurt Shinji even further, and on a more subtle note to tell whoever caused him to wreck the 86 was not backing down.

'I wonder how that old fart at the hot springs hotel will handle seeming me again?' Shinji thought to himself, he had already done it once. But Shinji returning a second day would confirm to the lady that he was back in the position.

Shinji was already use to everyone again, the last three hotels were already familiar with Shinji's driving, and were aware of the accident the previous day, and the correct cirmustances of the accident. Shinji had wondered for a few minutes about how they knew the whole story, only to be told by Chisame just before that Misato had told everyone in the morning that day a very different story. Her latter trip on the evening run was designed to correct the story before Shinji returned to the mountain.

'How thoughtful of mother' Shinji sarcastically said before shuddering at the thought of mistaken Misato for his 'mother'. Well, she was on paper, so why the hell not? Shinji didn't have any problem with that at all, despite some minor objections from outsiders who would blindly expect to Misato to be his biological mother… which had caused comments from the uneducated elders of the township.

'Doesn't matter to me' he thought as he drove into the Sohma family hot springs resort. He drove slowly, proving his ability to handle any vehicle perfectly. The woman was waiting outside; noting the vain from her anger was visible from the driveway entrance.

"Good morning madam" Shinji said upon getting out of the car,

"You're late" She said simply "its 5:45 already! Don't you ever consider yourself others young boy!"

The time on the FC's dashboard, Shinji's watch and apparently the Hotel lobby all indicated it was actually 5:30am. Shinji sighed, not really in the mood to explain that her that alarm clocks with new batteries tend to accelerate the clock by a few minutes, though in this case, Shinji wondered if she had used a second clock for reference when resetting.

"Madam, I don't know what would make you imply that" Shinji added "Besides, according to you, I would've been fired yesterday"

"Never mind…" the old lady was now annoyed and clearly trying her best to remain lady like, even in his presence. Letting go no would give this indecent punk what he wanted.

Shinji ignored her the rest of the time; taking the load to the kitchen… noting also that the clock in there was also set at 5:35am. How this lady ran the place was beyond him, he hadn't seen anyone close to another staff member, expect the cook and the occasional hostess assistant. Shinji ignored the thought and walked back out to the lobby. He remembered the other thing in the car and went to retrieve it before the hostess returned from inspecting the supply this morning.

"They appear to be intact… no thanks to your slow driving and inability to be on time!" she hissed.

"Madam, I do not want to sound like i'm insulting you, but your at least 15 minutes in the future" Shinji gestured to the wall clock in the lobby, you certainly couldn't miss it given the size.

"That old clock is running slow" She replied harshly

"And the one in the kitchen?"

The old lady didn't want to look even more stupid by going back to check it herself, nor did she have the ability now to say that it too was slow.

"I'll tell you what, you sign the monthly balance sheet, I go home, and you can personally inspect every clock on the estate" Shinji was struggling to keep is humor and sarcasm to a minimum. He old lady gave him a dangerous look while she signed the monthly balance paper to indicate her deliveries for the month ahead. She had been defeated by this arrogant prick of a high school student; she decided to do her best to retort him.

"Please tell your boss, that if I catch you in the car again with another hussy, I'm canceling the deal"

"I will" Shinji said pretending to agree.

With that, the deal with her for this morning was over; Shinji sighed relief that she didn't follow her out and got into the car, and smoothly exited the estate without anymore trouble; time to head home, and then worry about the day ahead.

'Well, that was easy' Shinji thought to himself 'She didn't even try to extend the argument'

Shinji decided a few minutes later that he had genuinely crushed her in that dispute, though she could've retorted with something a little more threatening he knew, it almost felt like she was going easy on him; Why? There was no real reason for it, and he head never heard of a time when she went easy, even on customers. Before that thought had time to fester, Shinji decided to ignore it.

For about ten minutes, the ride was a smooth and quiet pleasure; until it was when he passed the intersection at the halfway point; it was then that Shinji saw a car dart out of the side road and catch up to him. It took him no less then a second to realize that and his veins instantly froze. Shinji was in no mood to race today, especially if it was the black car he encountered that rainy night.

Shinji decided he wouldn't push himself further and practice restraint. Shinji didn't floor it, instead retained a normal driving posture. He wasn't going to let his nerves and that driver behind him force a race so early in the morning and make Shinji gamble a car he didn't technically own.

For a few minutes he didn't notice it, until the lights flashed behind him, Shinji looked in his rear view mirror to notice the car. It was a blue Silvia, more importantly, he saw the driver.

'Touya?' Shinji wondered instantly. He saw him indicating, a gesture that made sense enough. Shinji slowed down and parked the car in a small dirt path on the side of the road, it followed the side of the hill, high enough above the tree line and you could just see Karasuyama-2 by the lake, just starting to wake up for another day. Shinji stopped the engine and then waited for the S-13 to park behind him. He waited a few seconds before Shinji saw Touya and a passenger gets out, it was Takashi.

'I wonder what this is about' Shinji thought as he opened the door and turned to face the two road racers. The three of them all looked at opposing group for a minute before Touya broke the silence.

"We asked Misato if we could meet you" Touya explained "She said that you would be on the mountain at this time of the day, and in this car" he gestured to the Mazda.

"I imagine you have a reason?" Shinji replied, it was like playing cards he realized or a game of emotions or something similar.

"Your opponent in the black Skyline" Takashi said "He intends to challenge you no matter what"

"I'm aware of it, and yes, I'm aware he is in fact the student teacher at my school" Shinji replied, "What does he want?"

"He wants to defeat your record and ruin your life"

It wasn't the first thing he was worried about, but it was second thing that made Shinji pay attention.

"What do you mean; 'ruin my life'?"

Touya wondered if Shinji was playing dumb or if he actually didn't know.

"Shinji, you should be careful about challenging him"

'Why did he call me by my name?' Shinji pondered before responding "Because he has a better car?"

'He doesn't understand' Takashi realized "He wants to challenge you, not the 86 of Karasuyama-2"

Again something chilled Shinji to respond. It felt like that both of them knew what was going on, so why couldn't they say it straight already, but what if they didn't know either? Whatever it was, it sounded serious.

"I suggest you go home and think about it" Touya said opening his door again "and think carefully about challenging him… he has a strong motive to beat you"

Shinji watched as the blue Silva revved up and rocket started from the dirt spot, back onto the road and drove off, returning Shinji to a state of lonely silence.

'He wants to challenge you…' Shinji thought to himself, unaware of the circumstances of that meaning. He somehow felt like it was an all important meaning, just for some reason, his mind just wasn't clicking into place. Maybe he'd ask Misato about it when he got home… or maybe not.

* * *

"Shinji your late!" Riksuto yelled at the young man.

"Sorry, sorry, I was caught up in something okay?" Shinji sighed handing the keys over to the doctor,

"Relax doc, Shinji's back and you don't have to be an hour early for work" Misato chimed in from the kitchen,

"Whatever, I'm off" Riksuto said, quickly running down the stairs.

"Well, that was funny" Misato said, "I can't believe several days ago, that haggard bitch refused to do any work around here"

"Misato, lets just get breakfast okay?"

"Way ahead of you" Misato patted him on the back "Rei made it a few minutes ago"

"Rei did?"

"I mean, how hard is it for her to cook pancakes?"

'Oh god…" Shinji thought as he consciously ran up and into the kitchen.

Surely enough, Rei was staring at a pan, with something smoking inside it, it looked like a pancake… expect that Shinji suspected instantly that she didn't understand you had to flip the pancake every few minutes to cook.

"Rei! What are you doing!?" Shinji moved Rei away from the stove, 'wasn't anyone watching her?!'

"Morning Shinji-kun" Rei replied in a surprised tone as she had been displaced an extra meter from the stove and Shinji went to work salvaging her thoughtful attempts.

"Rei, you read the instructions right?" Shinji flipped the pancake, relieving a black surface, it was also apparent she had misplaced the olive oil or butter in the pan. Thus there were patches of the black pancake missing chunks.

"Yes I did" Rei gestured to a cookbook next to a bag of flour and several egg shells.

'Sigh' Shinji said "okay Rei, go get ready for school, I'll finish up here'

Shinji started a quick cleanup of the kitchen that years of living with Misato had perfected. In a matter of ten more minutes, Shinji had made 3 whopper pancakes and cleaned up Rei's honest attempt at making breakfast.

"Breakfast is ready" Shinji said as he produced a plate and laid it in front of a hungry Misato. Rei had returned, now properly dressed with the blue school uniform scarf on in the best effort Rei did to tie a knot. Shinji knew he'd have to correct it… as he had for the previous several weeks. After everyone sat down and started eating breakfast, Misato finally turned the television for the top of the hour news.

"Good morning and this is NHK morning news for September 30, 2017. The time is 7am, Tanaka Asakura with the latest news"

Shinji paid no attention to the first bit of local news, something irate about a politician in Tokyo-2 slamming the latest tax increase on beef. Why that was the leading story would only be the result of people wondering what to buy for the next week, Saturday was technically the shopping day in Japan.

"In foreign news, the advocate chief of united nations naval service has announced the navy will be buying a further 400 naval variant Mig-29's from the Russian federation, causing outrage from the United States congress yesterday exploded, one unnamed congressman further emphasized and pushed the demands of the congress and united states navy that the united nations return the aircraft carrier, UNSS _Over the rainbow_, formerly known as USS _Enterprise_ prior to 2005…"

"Wow, the Americans are getting antsy about some bitty Russian plans on their carrier" Misato sipped her coffee.

"…the 25 year lease on the _Enterprise_ first came under fire two years again the aftermath of the attack on it by the sixth angel; known as Gaghiel, the monster wreaked havoc to the naval force transporting NERV equipment, resulting in the sinking of over dozen naval vessels and a complete wipe out the air wing on _Enterprise_, which at the time comprised of older naval versions of the MIG-29…"

On the screen, footage from that day appeared, as a massive red whale was scene cutting a guided missile destroyer in two, as well as the deployment of the bright red Eva from the transport ship. Shinji felt nostalgic looking at this again, strange.

"Wow, that's a blast from the past" Misato pointed out with amusement. "You remember that day don't you Shinji?"

"Yea…" Shinji indeed remembered it, it was the first time him and Asuka had met. It took him a few seconds to realize that she hadn't been on his mind of late. Well, that couldn't be helped, with him becoming a sort of famous road racer in the local area, his reunion and new roommate whom everyone assumed was dead, and a bunch of other things. 'Wow, I have been doing a lot this month'

"Hey you two" Misato interrupted Shinji's thought "its getting sort of late don't you think?"

Shinji looked up at the clock, 7:20, he had until 8:15 to get to school, but Misato wasn't keeping faith in his ability to run to school.

"Okay, can you clean up for me?" Shinji asked, knowing that it wouldn't be accomplished anyway,

"No problem" Misato replied, also knowing that fact, but still answered positively to attempt to keep Shinji happy. It was an unspoken agreement that if he asked and she verbally promised; both of them would be happy.

* * *

Rei and Shinji made good time walking, they weren't really running flat out, it only took half an hour to get to school from home, so neither were in a rush, Rei because she didn't seem to understand, and Shinji because he personally didn't give a damn.

"We have a test today do we not?" Rei said

"Yea…" Shinji said, he and Rei had studied the previous night for a reason, how could she have forgotten already? Shinji prayed that the 3 hours going over Japanese classics hand.

"Can I ask a question?" Rei asked,

"Sure, as long as it's nothing to do with classics"

"When you saw that report about the Navy deal over that aircraft carrier, you… looked… out of it, I'm not sure I can describe it…"

"You mean a daze?" Shinji asked, wondering why Rei was even asking it.

"Yes"

"Well…" Shinji said, stretching his arms over his head, "I suppose it's because that it brought back some memories"

"About the battle?"

"That too…" Shinji shuttered.

"That too?" Rei repeated "you mean something else as well?"

"Yea" Shinji was wondering were this conversation was going; he felt no sense hiding it from Rei, so he continued to explain "We'll, it reminded me of the day I met Asuka… we met Asuka…

"Pilot Soryu?"

"Yes" Shinji replied "And don't call her that, Just Soryu-kun will do"

"Understood" Rei realizing her mistake,

"Anyway… Hikari gets a letter from Asuka every few weeks; she started a modeling career using her NERV retirement fund to get started"

"That sounds very…" Rei paused until the word came to her "Unusual"

"The letter or the modeling?" Shinji queried,

"The former doesn't make sense, neither does the latter"

Shinji sighed, Rei still was speaking while thinking, which he supposed was better then no reply.

"Soryu…-san, if I recall, had a intense hatred for you" Rei explained herself "why would she correspond with you at all is not understandable"

"Well…" Shinji explained, "Asuka started writing correspondence with Hikari two years ago, she was probably the only person among us that Hikari didn't have problems with. The letters she writes are really meant for Hikari. But when Hikari moved here, she started to let me read them, blacking out certain parts.

"I understand" Rei replied honestly, "and the latter?"

"I quite honestly don't know why Asuka went into modeling, she is young ill admit, but her status back at home, and her college education, Asuka is setup for life. No way she'll want to see us anymore, now she is famous and everything" Shinji said, a bit of himself in a daze at the end. Rei saw that and wondered why that kept occurring. She decided to take her guess.

"Is it… you miss Soryu-san?"

Shinji didn't reply for several minutes, which gave Rei the correct impression that indeed, she had hit the nail on the head, as the saying she remembered went. She decided on her own concern not to attack Shinji further on the subject and wait for him to get himself out of it.

"We'll…" Shinji finally said "after her initial departure, it seems awfully quiet without her around, and then it came to me that… I really did like her company… not all the time, but I guess I got very use to her hanging around"

Rei felt some curiosity invade her will to exit this conversation, she decided to experiment and see what she got. "Didn't Soryu-san… have a great deal of mistrust and anger directed at you?"

"She did…" Shinji said "but there are plenty of times when me and Asuka really got along… its those times I really miss"

Rei pondered before replying "I mean no offence to you Shinji-kun…" Rei paused "but where you place you affection towards truly doesn't make sense to me"

"Non taken" Shinji replied with a chuckle "I guess it would seem strange to everyone else"

"I see"

"Anyway, it doesn't matter" Shinji said, looking at the school down the street "Asuka won't be coming back to us any time soon"

Rei nodded as though she understood. Shinji's emotions didn't make sense, which didn't surprise, given she had lack of knowledge on social behavior. She would ask the doctor once she managed to get the time.

* * *

Because of the conversation, Shinji and Rei's pace had slowed down, and in school social groups like here at Karasuyama-2 Public high school; take rather careful note of the time their associates, friends, loved ones and teachers all showed up, which was the reason Touji and Kensuke noted with annoyance the 10 or so extra minutes before Shinji and Rei finally entered the classroom.

"What the hell were you two doing?" Kensuke first demanded

"Good morning Aida-kun" Red greeted in reply,

"Hey, we're still early for class, so what's the worry?" Shinji sighed as he dumped his bag on the desk,

"The worry? Is why you are so damn late" Touji replied, "Hikari wants to see you"

"About?"

"I don't know, and it's not my damn business to keep track of your affairs!" Touji,

"You forgot in other words" Shinji replied bluntly,

Touji drooped his shoulders and sighed "Yes…"

Shinji pondered how that was possible while he sat down and unloaded the bag for today. "Is Hikari in a school meeting for the class reps?"

"Yes, you just missed her" Kensuke said,

"Morning chaps" came another voice from the door; it was Kazama "what's the good word?"

'I really should throttle your neck one of these days' Shinji thought quietly before replying "Nothing"

"And why are you so damn late?" Kensuke asked,

"Hey!" Kazama instantly replied in defense "a new bakery just opened, you should really have a gander at the girl at the register"

"Oh?" Kensuke instantly changed his mood "do tell…"

Shinji sighed and looked over to Rei who was sorting her books out, almost completely unaware of the conversation. If it had been another girl in class, their almost automatic response would be to leave the guys and ignore it, or in some special cases, pummel their skulls into the floor for thinking such things.

'Sometimes Rei, I wonder if it's really the best thing for you just to stay unaware'

"Well, she was sort of short, about Rei's height. But she has long black hair in a ponytail… her body was great, its lean, looks like she works out a lot, but it was her eyes… she looked very serious… like a protective caring serious…"

Both Touji and Kensuke nodded in agreement, by the description, and their active imagination, they were already creating a picture of this girl, which wasn't really a healthy thing in retrospect; both would know that Kazama's description might be misleading,

"What have you guys got your mind in the gutter about this time?" Naoko appeared out of nowhere, "Morning Shinji"

"Morning Naoko" Shinji replied, Rei remained silent.

"Hey Naoko, what's the word?" Kazuma asked "anyone skipping today?"

"No… not that I know of yet… they'll be one or two, I'm sure of it"

Shinji pondered at that, having already unpacked for class and now waited for it to begin, so he could just get this thing over with and go home. He also remembered that thing as well,

"Oh yea…" Shinji said "you guys want to come along this afternoon; Riksuto told me yesterday that we're recommencing the practice runs"

"Really?" Kensuke replied quickly "is the 86 already fixed?"

"No…" Shinji replied and continued "but Rei is suppose to be trained to drive the FC"

"Really?" Kazama was surprised, though Shinji wondered why, he'd had already known, didn't he? Kazama looked over to Rei "your one lucky girl, driving a rotary"

'Why am I lucky to drive a certain car?' Rei pondered, her face not even changing a nanometer in feeling.

"Anyway…" Shinji steered to conversation "if you guys want to come along, meet us at the top at about 7pm, after I finish my delivery run, that's fine.

"Sweet!"

Unaware to any of the students, a teacher was walking by the door, and happened to overhear the last few lines of the conversation. The man grinned and walked off to the class he was going to monitor exams for.

* * *

"Doctor, the latest test reports" a nurse handed a clipboard over to the new doctor.

The doctor was doing the rounds because for the most part, there were no intern doctors for this hospital, it annoyed her to be doing this task, but she supposed it was better then nothing.

"This looks fine" She replaced it at the end of the bed "that's everyone on the list"

The nurse nodded in agreement, slightly scared at the wrath she didn't want to unlock from her. Since her arrival on Thursday, Riksuto had caused a storm, being personally let by the director to shake cages in the ER and medical wards of Karasuyama-2 medical centre. Only three days into her job, people were already having mixed feelings with her. She was a slave driver to the nurses and support staff, her degree of demand sometimes exceeding. The other doctors didn't have a real love for Riksuto as of yet, but already she had managed to save their behinds at least once on some cases. The chief surgeon was already respecting her, which hopefully would force the rest to follow suit eventually.

Riksuto had to admit it was nice to be in charge of a medical ward, again. Her word was law, and only a few so far were foolish to attempt to break that. She assumed that by the end of the week, Riksuto would have complete confidence of the staff, and she planned to get the hospital running at full effectiveness by November; a strange yet accomplished goal.

"Doctor Akagi"

"Yes?"

The chief nurse of this ward approached her with a note paper, "the director wants to move his lunch meeting from 12:30 to 1, is that acceptable?"

"I suppose so" Riksuto sighed, "probably still reading my recommendations list"

"He did say something along those lines"

"Okay, I guess I can wait that long"

Riksuto thanked the nurse and headed off to her office, she didn't rate an assistant yet, but she didn't mind the paperwork. It helped Riksuto get her mind off things' which for the moment was something she needed. It was becoming apparent to the doctor that her money from the professor would never come, maybe it would, but her argument with Misato on Wednesday had force home the issue that she didn't notice herself; she was becoming lazy.

For a few weeks, all she really did at Misato's shop was wake up, eat, watch television until lunch, eat takeout for lunch, snooze in the afternoon, maybe watch the news, eat dinner, drink Misato's supply of booze, and go to bed. No wonder Misato got frustrated with her.

Riksuto got up and looked in a mirror. Her body was almost hopeless, flab under her shirt was hiding itself from view, and she decided her diet of god knows what she ate while performing research back at Tokyo-2 would be the main culprit. That and age, she knew she couldn't have the body she had a mere 2 years ago, but she really needed to get back in shape.

Her eating habits in the last few weeks was a radical improvement on what she was normally accustomed, tofu, miso soup, and whatever was being cooked at home. Shinji was the only competent cook, and he only knew how to make healthy foods.

'I suppose that'll help' she thought to herself as she sat down and looked out the window towards the mountain, before being reminded of her other objective today, that part she would need to talk to the director.

* * *

"Bah!" Kensuke yelled into the air as he walked down the path towards work, "too much hard work sends me crazy!"

"That wasn't so bad" Shinji said "I mean sure the last page was a real stumper, but that's normal for tests like that"

"Shinji, you nerves of steel!" Touji exclaimed, "Nobody would dare say that about a classics exam!"

"Give it up Touji, Shinji doesn't fear anything" Kensuke sighed "What about you Rei?"

"The Exam was hard, but not impossible"

"Jeez, what is it with you too and exams?" Touji continued his rant "do I have to go into a road race to become invincible like you?"

"No" Rei answered "the prerequisite to passing an exam I believe is to study"

Shinji swore Rei said that on purpose, thought he couldn't tell if what she said was really an honest answer or a burn at Touji; either way, it had the desired effect.

"Ho ho..." Kensuke laughed "you got burned dude!"

Touji wanted to commit murder, but there were too many witnesses around, Shinji sighed, Rei remained the way she was, unaware of what was truly going on; the group continuing its progress towards town, and respective part time jobs.

They continued in their own chatter for several minutes before they came to an intersection and waited at the lights. Ahead of them and on the other side of the street, a girl about Shinji's height, with long black hair in a right ponytail was standing their alone, hugging to her chest a bag of groceries. Shinji took a few seconds to notice, it, but it was her eyes that took his attention, a deep emerald green complexion seemed to glare at Shinji from across the street.

The intersection lights changed and the walk sign permitted the party of four and the girl to across their respective ways towards their respective destinations. Shinji kept one eye on the girl, pretending his best to ignore her, indeed on closer inspection; she appeared more like the description that Kazama had given. Shinji's one eye, now got a good look at her, but it surprised him and almost made him react when he discovered that her eyes were indeed directed at him.

He expected to see her have a clam and collected look on her face, however, it contradicted as it looked like she was sad and worried then anything else.

'Strange' Shinji thought as her face disappeared from view, he resisted turning around and giving her a second look, but he managed to withstand the pressure to see the back of her head. However his two comrades did look at her, only with side glances. Nobody spoke a work until after they were supposedly a good distance from the mysterious girl.

"Wow" Kensuke spoke first, beating Touji to the comment "I wonder if that's who Kazama was talking about?"

"Damn…" Touji replied "I mean, damn… you don't see that everyday"

"What don't you see everyday?" Rei inquired,

Both males stuttered and thought about it some more. Rei pondered and decided to guess, much to Shinji's future dismay.

"The only characteristics about her from what we saw were she is female, green eyes, and black hair down to her waistline" Rei then asked "you're saying that you don't see such females everyday?"

Shinji didn't quite know how to take that, Rei was being honest in her questioning and very straight-to-the-fact, however these days, it felt like Rei was bordering sarcasm to an outright burn, not in her tone, that remained the same as if Rei was asking directions to the post office, but in sentence structure, and the almost perfected timing. Where was she learning that Shinji wanted to know, because it was starting to freak him out?

"Um…uh…" Kensuke was paused from commenting

"Hey Shinji, little help?"

He sighed and starts to formulate a reply that would help Rei to understand. The problem is, trying to get something that would interpret her literal interpretation of everything. Shinji often wondered how teachers, or even how Doctor Akagi managed to teach Rei anything without ending up repeating it several dozen times.

"Rei…"Shinji began to start, Rei turned to look at her roommate "what Kensuke and Touji are saying is, that, we have never met her before, and her general…"

"…general what?"

"General…aura"

"Aura?"

"Yes, it's sort of a way of saying a certain feeling about someone"

"I see" Rei nodded "so you, Kensuke-kun, and Touji-kun have not encountered someone with her 'aura' prior to today?"

"I suppose that's the best way of describing it" Shinji sighed Before that conversation could go anywhere and Shinji manage to answer Rei's question a satisfactory grade, a miracle of sorts occurred, Hikari appeared.

"Hey!!!" Hikari screamed from a block down the street, instantly gaining the attention of the trio of men and the albino girl. "Wait up!!!"

Hikari ran the last block and caught up to them, immediately she crouched and started expelling her lungs of expired air, and catching her breath again, he'd been an awhile since she had to run that far that fast. Shinji and everyone waited patiently for two minutes as she recovered,

"Shinji-kun…" she continued to breath, but much more lightly now "I forgot, I had something for you" she reached into her bag and produced a well weathered envelope, "Here…"

Shinji took the letter out of her hands and read the front; sure enough on the front was the address to Hikari's residence near the lake, but the handwriting was distinct and told everyone who it was,

"Hey, another Asuka correspondent" Kensuke said first

"Has it been a month already?" Touji said "Wow, time flies when you're having fun"

Shinji pocketed the letter, much to the disappointment of Touji and Kensuke who, despite their distrust of the German girl, still were mildly interested in her news. Shinji would read it later at work, it was usually best to be sitting down when reading anything Asuka wrote.

"Come on Shinji" Kensuke started, "we have to get to work, before the boss fires us and hires Rei to replace us"

Shinji started walking off, by some chosen consent, Touji and Hikari started walking to their respective workplaces, Rei, whom still was unemployed, would likely hang around Shinji at the store. It was not so much that Shinji didn't trust her to walk home alone, but somewhere in his mind, he knew that she was better off near him, factors to the contrary.

Shinji then thought about the letter, pondering in advance at the contents, just a strange coincidence that it would come the day Shinji would see that news report… and then that meeting with Takashi and Touya… Shinji paused in his thoughts about the letter for a moment and realized that thought-out today, he had the strangest set of coincidences, well not completely related, they were still strange in many aspects.

'How odd…' Shinji thought back to that meeting with the two road racers, warning him to be very cautious of the driver of the Black GT-R. What was it they said; he wasn't here to defeat the Black 86 of Karasuyama-2, he wanted to defeat Shinji as a person. Why? That question would haunt Shinji for a few hours to come.

* * *

Because of inconvenience it would take to do two trips on the mountain, Shinji was forced to tag Rei along in the FC while he performed the delivery run. In acknowledging that the old lady at the hot springs would attack Shinji for tagging a 'hussy' along, he decided to play along with Misato on a very carefully planned and altogether evil joke on the hostess.

Shinji drove the FC into the estate as per usual, keeping the low growl of the engine present as he crept at a slow speed to the lobby entrance, where as usual, the old lady was awaiting with an annoyed look, Shinji wasn't late, and so he knew then that it was because of Rei being in the car.

"Good evening madam" Shinji said getting out of the car,

"I see you ignored the kind request I laid down this morning" she glared at Rei, who without doing anything, was doing exactly what Misato and Shinji wanted her to do; nothing.

"Madam, my boss said that she could come, I explained in brief detail that you did not approve of that practice and if you wanted to, you could talk to Ms Katsuragi if you deem it required"

"Indeed I will" She snarled back, finally she was getting the chance to get back for that insulting argument defeat this morning. Shinji ignored the comments and picked up his final crate and walked in with the lady, while Shinji walked into the kitchen to offload the cargo and retrieve the empty pallets for this week, the old lady made a phone call

"Katsuragi Tofu shop, Misato speaking"

"Yes… this is the owner of the Sohma family hot springs estate"

"Yes" Misato altered her tone accordingly "has something happened?

"Indeed" the hostess spoke in a bitter and serious voice "I have managed to catch your employee is using your company car to transport his hussy of a girlfriend around again! This is not acceptable! Please do something about this!"

"There is a girl in car?" Misato asked,

"Yes!"

"That's very odd, I thought Shinji had Rei in car" Misato said on the phone, which was meant for her, I'm talking to her mother"

"Put me through to her!"

"I suppose I can, one second…" Misato handed over to Riksuto

"Hello, this is Doctor Akagi speaking, whom might this…"

"Have you no shame!" the lady instantly attacked the person on the other end, unaware of who it really was

"Excuse me?"

"I can see your daughter in that cowardly dolt's car, how could you let her be a hussy!?" the hostess waited for a reply, when five seconds past, something made her think that was not the best thing to say,

"How dare you…" Riksuto replied in a low and evil tone "How dare you say that about my only daughter AND my relatives!!!"

Shinji had just returned to the lobby and he had even heard that; he had to contain every micrometer of flinching; he just couldn't believe that Riksuto was playing along with this joke, and the look on the hostess's face was almost too funny to contain himself. He however did his best to keep his composure to a calm level.

"…you're relative?"

"I and Rei just moved to this town, I work as chief medical doctor at the local hospital, and I have my daughter to follow the same path!" Riksuto continued her Oscar winning performance, ignoring Misato grinning at her from a distance of 10 feet, "and to say that Shinji, who is a relative of MY family, would DARE do something to a blood relative is beyond an insult… it's an outrageous attack on me as a professional and a mother!!!"

"Madam…" the hostess cowered, as her previously strong attack continued to backfire dramatically as the doctor continued to rage.

"Shinji and Rei have known each other from the age of 5" Riksuto continued "He would not DARE attack or lay a finger on Rei… and your claiming they are performing incest?!"

"No, no… I just…"

"Hostess… you best say sorry to me now, or ill ask my friend here to rip the contract" Riksuto yelled

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Please… I didn't know!" the hostess continued, bowing as she continued, further amusing Shinji who crept backwards into the hallway leading to the kitchen "I was left unaware…"

"I hope to believe that is the truth…" Riksuto spoke in a low and frightening voice. "Rei is a mature young woman in any case, and Shinji would not dare harm a relative, or any girl for that matter!"

"I understand…"

"I have nothing else to talk about to you" Riksuto concluded before handing the phone back,

"Yes?" Misato replied to gain the woman's attention

"Your employee and the girl in the car are related?"

"Yes as a matter of fact, I just learn that I a few days ago, small world it seems"

"It seems so" the hostess grabbed on the escape from this phone call "I'm sorry to have bothered you

"I understand your concern" Misato judged "in any matter, we best be getting on with work"

"Goodbye" The phone hung up without a return reply. The old lady took a few minutes before she turned to face Shinji who apparently just walked out of the kitchen. Shinji was glad that she couldn't see how much laughter he was hiding behind a poker face.

* * *

"Jeez Riksuto, you even had be convinced!" Misato laughed, she'd been doing so for a few minutes. Riksuto had a chuckle; the phone call was a revenge for the occasion a few weeks ago when she visited the estate.

"We'll, expect for the relatives' part, it's sort of true" Riksuto

"But your acting was perfect!" Misato continued "What I'd give to see her face"

"Shinji must've, I wonder how he managed" Riksuto pondered.

"he knows how to cover up his humor" Misato said, then picked up her jacket "come on, the kids are out tonight on a date, lets go down to the pub"

Riksuto had already promised herself to go on a diet from booze; but tonight would be the exception to the law, this had been revenge after all; hadn't it? Besides that, what else could go wrong?

* * *

Shinji parked the car behind a red AE92, its passengers and driver all got out once Shinji stopped. Shinji saw that among the people, were Hikari, Naoko, Kazama, Touji and Kensuke; he was indeed surprised that Hikari was here, Naoko was a given, her carefree motive on life made it unpredictable as to what she would do.

"Hey Shinji, how often are you late?" Kensuke spoke first

"Guys, I have a job before this" Shinji responded "anyway, what now? Usually I and Rei just swap seats and go"

"Yea, but first we want something" Kazama said

Shinji could only guess, he knew it too, and that was the only reason that they would even be interested in being here.

"Okay, okay…" Kensuke, you can get in the passenger seat for the first run, Kazama, I can't do more then 5 runs, and I have to make Rei practice.

"Fine…" he grumbled; so close, but there was always next time. He had driven them all here, yet, his chance to experience to drive in the passenger seat had been lost from that act of friendship. Shinji shrugged it off and walked back to the car, Rei was still sitting in the car.

"Rei, can you wait with Hikari, I have to give this car a test spin to see if the repairs in the shop worked" Shinji lied, though it looked like Rei did seem to notice the real reason. Rei got out of the passenger seat and walked over to Hikari, whom noticed that despite a 6 hour gap, was still in her school uniform,

"Rei, don't you have anything else besides that uniform?"

"I'm sorry"

"Remind me to take you down to a store sometime soon"

"Understood" Rei answered like it was an order, quietly ignoring Hikari,

'Isn't Shinji at least trying to make her talk normally?'

Just as Kensuke was about to get into the passenger seat of the FC, a loud roar came from down the road, everyone noticed it and turned in the general direction of the noise. Shinji noticed it and stopped starting the Mazda Rotary. Kazama saw it first; pair of headlights speeding down the road from Karasuyama-2. Eventually the outline of the black Nissan was visible as it started to slow down at the road bay stop.

The car didn't park on the other side of the road, it just stopped on the road itself, unaware of the fact it might have traffic, however rare that was. Shinji had seen it on the front, and the general outline of car in the teacher's parking lot put two and two together. Before anyone could say anything, the student teacher got out,

"Yo, kiddies, what's going on?" Ryosuke started, "

"Ryosuke-san…" Shinji replied, in a low but audible voice

"I'm sorry, but that's Ryosuke-_sensei_, Ikari Shinji-san" he looked over at the rest of the group "it seems like half my class is here, even the class representative"

Hikari blushed and stepped back; she wasn't expecting a teacher to find out about her proximity to this sort of stuff. It would ruin her, even possibility destroy her chances of retaining her position for the 3rd year. Everyone else, had the same feeling that Ryosuke wanted to impose,

"So, this is what the students of Karasuyama-2 High School get up to after dark?" Ryosuke examined "rowdy bunch of students you all are… I wonder what the other teachers think of it… and I thought you did quite well at the classics exam today… at least that's what I heard…"

"What do you want from us?" Shinji spoke on behalf of the group

"Nothing Ikari-san, not the group, but I am actually looking someone" he spoke and continued to explain "he drives a black AE86 Toyota Trueno Sprinter for the Katsuragi tofu shop…they say he was a student at Karasuyama-2 High school, so I wonder if you know him?"

"I do" replying in the tone that really implied 'I'm him'

"Strange, I didn't know you owned a rotary… it's a delicate piece of crap unfortunately, especially the FC… how old is it? 25 years now? It's almost a museum piece… just like the 86"

Kazama was about to attack him, but Shinji held an arm in front, preventing him getting involved, it was his fight.

"You know what happened to the 86" Shinji said in a strong and low tone

"Oh? Did something happen? I must say this is the first I've heard of it" Ryosuke replied smoothly,

'Especially when you were one who caused the accident you bastard' Shinji wanted to say, but replied "again, why are you hear"

"Let's see Shinji… I'm assuming the 86 will be out of the shop soon; it is at the Okochiba garage across town correct? That means it'll be fixed soon" Ryosuke went on to explain his understanding of the situation, despite how it contradicted.

"Get to the point"

"I will race you"

"It's not for you to decide if a race will happen" Shinji countered with his understanding of road racing

"I'm afraid I won't accept that" Ryosuke said "I like a challenge, especially given which you are Ikari Shinji-san"

It was at that moment that the things he encountered today started clicking, the news broadcast, the talk with Rei, the letter from Asuka, and the meaning behind his encounter with Touya and Takashi, Shinji remembered then the meaning behind that one line;

'He wants to challenge you, not the 86 of Karasuyama-2' Shinji remembered the line "Why do you want me to race?" Shinji asked a stupid question.

"Why it's so simple, I know why you moved here, in fact; I know a lot about you..."

That one sentence chilled Shinji, it was visible on him from where Touji, Kensuke and Hikari were standing; all three knew that someone was really wrong.

"Is that your true intention, to follow me?" Shinji asked another stupid question

"No, just a simple wager" Ryosuke said "I'll be kind to you for once; ill give you a chance to get yourself and that 86 ready, for whatever good it will do, but we will race when I say so, I will tell you, but be ready"

Ryosuke decided to play one final line before going home "I'm surprised Ikari Shinji-san; you never told anyone? Your new mother never told anyone? Nobody in this town ever noticed? Amazing how stupid people can be without a teacher handy" Ryosuke opened his car door and got in, the engine was still on; he lowered the window "I hope you will give me something akin to a challenge, Ikari Shinji-kun…"

With that, Ryosuke 'rocket-started' the black R32 and just as quickly disappeared from everyone's sight.

"What the hell was that about…?" Kazama said, only to be cut off by Shinji

"I'm sorry Kazama, I'm canceling today's practice" Shinji said "you guys go home, fast" he looked at Hikari whom automatically got the message.

"What's going on Shinji, what was he talking about?" Naoko asked with a worried expression.

"I can't say" Shinji said in an angry tone "Just go home. I have to talk to Misato, fast"

* * *

A/N: Well there it is, back on track and burning smoothly. Its a tad too long for the job, the scene with Ritsuko at the hospital wasnt planned, but i needed a break. Anyway, this is going out a day earlier then normal launch day, because I leave for a anime convention tomorrow. Please Read and please people, review, this story now depends on it for it to retain its active status.

NighthawkImac


	14. Episode 13: The Brewing Storm

After Evangelion

Chapter 13: The brewing storm

"Finally, bed ahead"

Misato saw the house up ahead with mixed satisfaction and exhausted surprise, her vision however wasn't so bad to not see the car parked outside and the lights upstairs on, which even for just after midnight felt odd. Misato was drunk; no nose within 15 feet of her could mistake that fact. But Misato wasn't as far out of it as Riksuto was. Their dinking binge had been one of celebration for Rei's recovery, Riksuto's job and basically Misato and the doctor's excuse to see who could last the longest before passing out. Misato felt like getting Shinji to pick her up, but the house was only a kilometer or so away. That one kilometer felt like a hundred or more, considering that they accidentally walked to the school first.

Some three hours after, and dragging Riksuto around like a dead pig on her back, they finally found the house. Misato wondered If Shinji left the light on for her or if Shinji was still up. His window wasn't on, so she thought it wasn't a concern. Without further problems Misato heaved through the side door, slowly and found the door, 'all without crashing into anything' Misato thought to herself proudly. Opening the door like a falling pillar of drunken mess, Misato looked up to find the kitchen and meals area were sit lit up.

"Man I feel like crap" Misato spoke to herself before yawning, "time to crash"

"Welcome back" spoke the most unexpected voice at the top of the stairs, just beyond Misato's gaze.

"Rei?" Misato spoke curiously. She walked up the stairs and spotted Shinji and Rei sitting at the table. Shinji was looking over to his drunken mother, carrying a more intoxicated medical professional on her back.

"You alright?" Shinji got out of his seat, ignoring the chess game on the table for a moment.

"Yea, just have to carry this all the way"

The usual disruptions followed as Shinji took custody of the doctor while Misato got her bearing worked out. She wondered where and why Shinji was awake, but she first wanted to get herself refreshed. Shinji agreed mostly out of his desire for Misato to drown her head in a tub of cold water.

"Shinji, I hate to ask you…" Misato said as she and he finally put her on the futon "but can you…"

"You're joking aren't you" Shinji said,

"Please… ill go have a shower while you do it" Misato clapped her hands together and prayed for Shinji to do it. Her drunken impression and the frankness of the request only made Shinji's demeanor sink into the ground faster. But Shinji was use to this treatment of being used, so he could only sigh again and nod.

"Thanks a bunch" Misato nodded approvingly before getting up unsteadily and walking to the bathroom, Shinji wondered what Rei was doing and she found her still in the kitchen.

Rei was staring, Shinji assumed at the chess board, still trying to figure out a way to save her queens knight from a 3 way trap Shinji created.

"You might want to save the game for later" Shinji said "when Misato is done, we have to tell her" Rei nodded and folded the bored in half and tipping the pieces into a bag, erasing her problem with the black horse once and for all. Shinji returned back to his new problem.

'You know, if a psychologist ever asked me what I did for as a teenager, you know what I will say?' Shinji ranted in his mind as he started remove the shirt and blouse of Dr. Riksuto Akagi, MD. 'I'd say "I lived in a house the 3 girls, one apparently has died twice now, one of them can drink any Irishman under the table, and the last one was involved in trying to get me killed dozens of times. And one of my jobs was to make sure I changed their clothes every time they came home drunk". I wonder if that would classify me as mentally warped in some perverted way.'

"Shinji, have you finished changing her nappy?" Misato called out in the hallway. It surprised Shinji somewhat. The procedure of restoring dignity to and changing Riksuto into some sleepwear took over 10 minutes, which was fine because Misato usually took ages in a shower and usually had to be reminded when time was up.

"Please tell me you're dressed" Shinji muttered silently, "she's okay now"

Having lived with Misato long enough, Shinji could guess accurately the percentage of times Misato lowered her barrier of dignity when she was at home, even if people were around. At that; Shinji got up, turned around, closed his eyes, and walked out of the room and left and directly towards his room, correctly assuming that Misato, with lacking common sense was wrapped in a towel and still tipsy.

"Rei" Shinji said, once the door closed behind him, "if I ever start to enjoy this, can you please hurt me in some way?"

It was then that Shinji realized the mistake he made with Rei, who had been standing around doing nothing the whole time. And he could already feel the headache coming on.

"I don't understand"

'Yep' Shinji thought, stressed already with the previous days events,

"Why would you enjoy having to undress the doctor because of instructions to do so?"

"Because anywhere else, it would be considered moldy perverted and immoral to a weird extreme"

"Performing nursing duty is considered perversion?"

Shinji sat down and sighed, wondering if he should brew some coffee for himself.

"Not exactly… nurses are required to do certain things like that, but there is a difference between what I do and what a nurse does"

"But you did do the task on request without question, and you have done this before, Misato also appears to entrust you to do it greatly"

"Let's remember that there is a difference between what mistake considers okay"

Rei was silent for a minute, Shinji sighed because he could feel it coming on

"So why are you worried about what Misato considers okay?"

"Because it's not normal anywhere else" Shinji said, begging from the bottom of his soul that Rei would just be satisfied with that.

"But I've read that nursing people back to health, in on personal and family levels that it's quite acceptable to undress the subject"

Shinji's eyebrow cocked and his mouth dropped in an expression of disbelief and complete and utter confusion, in the open where the whole universe could hear it; Rei just disregarded common sense on a level that Shinji couldn't even discover words for. If Shinji could have a heart attack now would be an excellent time.

"What in hell are you reading?" Shinji said "Remind me to look at them later on will you"

"Understood?"

"Rei… listen, have Riksuto explain it, I think she can figure out the proper words for you to understand"

"How is it going kids?" Misato said unsteadily walking into the meals area, Shinji sighed and got up as he noticed her wearing a nightgown which she seemed to have great difficulty putting on. Misato had given up on the front buttons and didn't seem to care, in fact smiling as Shinji got up and helped his guardian to a seat.

"Lets sit on the couch; I'm too tired for a chair" she turned, almost unbalancing Shinji and her for a graceful fall to the floor. Shinji caught her instead and kept her upright. Shinji sighed again and started to walk towards the couch in the living room. Before doing so he stopped and looked to Rei who was following him.

"Rei, if you want to go change and go to bed, its okay" Shinji asked, "go and get some sleep and I will to tell Misato what happened"

"I understand" Rei nodded and walked back to his bedroom.

'Why did Shinji make her go away?' Misato wondered, her mind now clicking into motion wondering why Shinji was up and why he seemed concerned all of a sudden. Misato quickly tried to summarize what she knew she last saw Shinji in the afternoon, okay he went out and trained with Rei, that's all, the car was intact, and that was fine. Shinji was too chicken to do anything with Rei, fine. Rei wouldn't have played along in any case, fine. So what had changed since this Misato had to find out?

Shinji let her drop onto the couch; comfortable enough that was instantly comfortable, Shinji sat down next to her and lay back sighing.

"Tell me Shinji" Misato putting an arm around him and pulling Shinji into a hug, almost resting his head close to her chest, somehow to Shinji's exhausted embarrassment "what's on your mind?"

Misato liked to feel like his mother, he was a good kid, an intelligent kid, and he never had put a foot wrong, lied, and since he moved her, he had ever really argued with Misato over anything, obeying her faithfully like any son. Even as an adoptive mother, Misato felt like he was blood related now. She rubbed her cheek in his black coarse hair and waited for Shinji to reply.

"We've been found out" was the only four words he spoke in a strained and quiet whisper. Shinji could feel the chill on his mother's usually warm body, and the tight grip on him relieve for a moment, he released himself and sat upright to explain further, "Ryosuke approached us during practice, he hinted that he knows the true identity of all of us; me, Rei, the doctor… and you"

"Are you serious?" were all the words could think of saying. She knew the words were vain, but her lips moved on their own. Misato's mind ordered and instant flush of the booze and was starting to go stone sober in a hurry; Shinji wouldn't dare joke, or lie about this. Before Misato asked, Shinji started to explain in a strained whisper,

"This morning, Tonya and Lahaska said that Ryosuke was looking for me to race, and it's because Ryosuke said he knew who I really was…" Shinji continued without breathing "He approached the whole group, including Kazama and Naoko, explained to me that he is willing to wager the secret if I race him and defeat him"

"Oh my…" Misato said, but Shinji cut her off

"he hasn't reviled anything, just that he knows me" Shinji continued, momentarily starting to shake "I don't know how he exactly came to know us, but he has singled me and Rei out already in class and the attack on Mt Akira doesn't sound like he is bluffing. He knows Hikari and everyone are from Tokyo-3, he knows who we are… and if I don't meet him and beat him in a race, he threatens to uncover our identities"

Misato turned to look at Shinji who was just staring into space now, saying in a whispered monotone the news that she never wanted to hear.

"I think you will have to confront the doctor tomorrow and tell her that we are about to be exposed, she is a wanted criminal if they discover that Rei is still alive, and we'll have our lives turned upside down if we stay here"

"Shinji…" Misato whispered; her feeling to just wrap her arm around Shinji and pull him back to her embrace was a lot harder now. Four simple words made it harder and Misato had to think fast now what to do. Shinji felt colder then ice now, he just explained everything to his mother and there was nothing he could do. The silence in the room was amazing, Shinji could identify the sound of Rei changing in his room and the sound of Riksuto turning in her sleep and mumbling something incoherently.

Misato thought at a mile a second trying to figure out a solution, a cocky and effective answer to this, there always was one, but the only solution was to irrational for considerations.

'Run away'

Misato shook her head quickly when her mind even imaged the word on a blank piece of paper. But what choice did she have? There were plenty of things that could be said right now, she needed to think about the motive, the reason, everything. She needed another mind, Riksuto.

"Shinji… what are the chances that Naoko and Kazama know now?"

"That I'm a retired evangelion pilot?" Shinji replied "unless Kensuke cringed and submitted, I don't think so, Toji wouldn't talk about, Hikari wouldn't talk about it, Kensuke is the most likely and he knows by now that it's not a good idea.

"Shinji…" Misato asked painfully "I know this might sound harsh but…"

"Did I tell anyone?" Shinji said "No damn it! Nobody knows, only everyone we knew already! Naoko doesn't know, Kazama doesn't know….Asakura doesn't know"

Misato looked down at the floor feeling rejected for insulting Shinji's integrity. Misato knew she didn't tell anyone, even when drunk, she didn't tell Sousuke either, non of the road racers even came close to knowing anything about her name before anything else. Her mind weaved from the lack of sleep and she worried about what Shinji would do for tomorrow. Finally she had the courage to put an arm around him and embrace Shinji again.

"We'll try to settle this problem in the morning" Misato said, "I want you to get your sleep, and I want you to not worry about it"

Shinji pondered quietly about the possibilities that presented themselves now. But he decided to follow his mother's advice and leave it for the daylight hours. He had today off from work, so he didn't have to confront anyone.

"Okay" Shinji gasped the word out; he took a moment to get the energy to get out of bed. When he did he heard Misato moan for him, he turned around and saw her hand up. Shinji sighed reluctantly as he held on and helped Misato to her feet, and then guided her back to heavily intoxicated body back to bed

"Sometimes I feel like I help you out way too much" Shinji whispered with some dried humor

"Be quiet" Misato replied,

* * *

As much as he promised himself not to go out that day, Shinji ended up doing so. Not because he had to or anything, but because Shinji couldn't spend all day at home bored. He had gotten up only several hours after he went to bed after his brief discussion with Misato, after which he drove his Sunday morning shift, racing home only in time to give Riksuto the car and let her drive to work.

He slept all morning, forcing Rei to abandon her only pastime of reading, instead trying, with all the effort possible, to keep the kitchen clean as Misato occasionally came to get a snack or a beer or both. But after midday he was wide awake and wondering what to do.

Shinji realized then that he didn't really go to town a lot, apart from work and occasionally to go to the supermarket to buy something Misato forgot. Cherry blossom Avenue practically was the centre of town and he never really went around looking at the sights. It was a small town, but it was on a lake, because of which, he decided to head that way.

"Shinji, where are we going?" asked the voice behind him,

"I don't know Rei, I felt like exploring for once, get out of the house, you know?"

Because of the fact she too had nothing to do, and at Misato's insistence, Rei ended up tagging along, merely to let her get out of the house. Shinji wondered if maybe Misato did it so she could conduct some more serious investigating without him knowing, or a mild and pointless attempt to get Rei to socialize more. Shinji didn't care; just that he had time to spare and no objective.

"Its 1 in the afternoon, how about we go to one of those cafes at the boardwalk" Shinji pondered "my treat"

"Understood" Rei nodded and walked ahead of Shinji at a uniform pace. Shinji examined her roommate again. Her attire wasn't anything close enough to indicate something like an outing. Reid's choice of outfits in fact were simple household things, it looked more like she was out doing errands. Shinji wondered if it would be wise idea if they went by a clothes shop on the way home...

'No, first I would have to teach Rei how to shop like a girl, and then she would have to be taught female fashion sense… I have to ask Hikari one day' Shinji pondered how he could accomplish that. In any sense, Shinji decided that for his own benefit, just a juice or ice cream would suffice.

That resolve ended quickly by the voice of someone

"Shinji-kun!"

Shinji paused in his spot and did a quick check of his surroundings. He couldn't locate the voice at first. Rei stopped as well wondering who called for Shinji, her looking more careful. Before Shinji could locate her, Naoko jumped onto his back. Shinji's fall onto the wooden planks was expect and received.

"Shinji-kun" Naoko said again, still on top of him.

"Naoko-san" he said slowly, his face planted into the boardwalk planks. "You mind?"

"Gomen" Naoko got off "I felt like surprising you!"

"It's alright" Shinji said as he got up and dusted himself off

"So what are you two doing here?"

"Shinji said a few minutes ago that he would go to the boardwalk and look for a café to have lunch at, he invited me to join, promising to pay for me as well"

"So a date?" Naoko instantly got excited

"No!" Shinji replied with some anger "I have the day off today and Rei ran into me just before"

Shinji still had the lagging problem of telling Naoko and Kazama, in an organized sense that they lived with each other. It was difficult for him now, and it was only going to get harder, trying keeping a secret for such a long time was considered a sin by these two, and it wouldn't exactly take very long before he faulted and she did learn the truth. Shinji was confident however that Naoko wouldn't find out yet; after all he had successful covered up his previous identity as a highly profiled member of NERV.

Naoko was clearly dressed to go out for some reason. Shinji knew she had a part time job in town, but he hadn't in the time since he met her ever attempted to find out. Shinji shrugged and started to walk to towards the cafes before Naoko asked

"So what are you two doing?"

"Lunch" Rei replied "I'm not exactly sure what else, but the objective was to 'get out of the house' as it were"

"Mind if I tag along?" Naoko asked "I've got today off too!"

Shinji's mood sank like a stone and his face showed it. First he wondered why Naoko was done here in the first place. Then he wondered how he now could talk to Rei without her doing something stupid; and if that wasn't enough, Naoko was probably going to try making Shinji shout her lunch and get away with it. But what froze his mind even more is that without a plan, he had no way of defending himself if Naoko decided to inquire about the reason why Ryosuke showed up.

"I suppose its okay… do you know anywhere that'll accept us dressed like this?"

"Nani?" Naoko stopped and gave both her friends a quick lookdown, "well you aren't exactly dressed for a date, but since when does that ever matter?"

"Some cafes have dress codes…" Shinji said somewhat blankly "that's why"

"Oh Shinji" Naoko laughed and bopped him on the head "you still think like a Tokyo-3 boy don't you? Come on" She walked on towards the corner.

Shinji rubbing his head and sighed, following their classmate in whatever direction his wallet would certainly end up suffering for it, Rei just didn't know what's going on and complied because Shinji was walking in that direction. A few minutes and a block later they came up to a large café that came with a view of the lake and the small public beach before it.

"Wow, I didn't know this was even here"

"Shinji, how long have you lived here again?" Naoko asked confused

"2 years"

"Well now you know why I said you seriously should get out more often, all work and no play make you too serious" Naoko said with a chuckle

"Gomen" Shinji replied with a sigh and started following Naoko to the café his mind already thinking about something else. Shinji took some time to observe the place; he rarely went anywhere to eat or anywhere that was considered a social setting, besides school and work.

'This place looks sort of like a family place… but I feel like its sort of upscale too… so much for my money'

"Hey Naoko-Chan!" replied the woman at the counter,

"Hey Rin-tan" Naoko smiled; all Shinji did a double take and looked at Naoko,

"You forgot I worked here didn't you?"

'You didn't tell me!' Shinji yelled in his mind,

"Let me guess, you want to grab a free meal off us?" Rin smiled "Sorry, ill give you half price, nothing better though"

"Thanks alright" Naoko cheerfully replied and grabbed Shinji into a headlock "Shinji here is going to pay for me!"

"Shinji?" Rin looked at the young man "is he the Shinji you keep on talking about?"

'Hey! What have you been talking about?' Shinji screamed in his mind, he ruffled and got out of the headlock.

"What's going on Naoko?"

"I'm so sorry" Rin bowed gently "I haven't introduced myself; my name is Rin Hitotose, I'm Naoko's boss"

"I see…" Shinji bowed in reply "Shinji Ikari"

"And your friend?" Rin looked at Rei standing behind both teenagers

"Rei Ayanami" Rei bowed, only because everyone else seemed to do that while greeting"

"So Shinji…" Rin turned her attention back to the male of the trio "is what Naoko said true?"

"What exactly might that be?" Shinji asked, faking laughter. In his head he quickly wondered 'What is true? What did she say about me? Don't tell me Kenesuke spilled the beans!'

"You're the driver for the 86 at Katsuragi tofu shop right?"

"Oh…" Shinji sighed relief "yes I am"

"Amazing!" Rin replied cheerfully, "and here I am thinking that Naoko was making up another one of her tall stories"

Naoko laughed and scratched her neck in an embarrassing way. Without anything else further to say, Naoko, Shinji and Rei went to get a table looking out over the lake. Shinji decided to just have soda and sandwiches, Rei ordered lemonade, Naoko ordered chess cake and a strawberry cream milkshake, much to the pain Shinji said,

"So Shinji" Naoko said "How long have you and Rei being meeting up like this?"

"Excuse me?"

"You didn't just bump into her while you were down here didn't you?" Naoko said with a sly grin,

'Naoko, for once in your life, can you stop assuming everything we do is suspicious!' Shinji thought, he looked over at Rei with a concerned look, he just prayed that she wouldn't open her mouth and says something stupid, his wishes however wouldn't be granted.

"No, Shinji and myself did come here with the specific purpose of 'getting out of the house' at the same time" Rei said, sipping her drink

'Rei, thank you…. For ruining my life' Shinji dropped his head in ashamed disbelief,

"Shinji, why don't you ever tell the truth" Naoko said with a sly grin "now I need to know how; many times you've been doing this?"

Naoko swore that Shinji's skin went pale at that comment, and his sprits were visible as they left his body.

"Shinji and I have only met once under these circumstances" Rei answered truthfully "however there are other times where he asked me to accompany him"

'Rei, come on… what are you trying to do to me' Shinji whimpered mentally,

"Oh really? I suppose that makes sense" Naoko grinned evilly "you are teaching her how to drive aren't you Shinji? How cute…"

Shinji wanted to escape, to wake up and discover this was all some sort of sick joke his mind was playing on him, something that wouldn't be as humiliating as having Rei sell him out on the street without her even knowing what she was doing. It was just too painful now to even imagine a way out of this.

"Please…." Shinji said with brittle tremors "don't misunderstand me… Rei tagged along with me after she just bumped into me... it's just a coincidence"

Naoko hummed amusingly, not really buying Shinji's story but none the less nodding, only because that was what one did to someone who was clearly lying to save his own life.

"That part is true" Rei said

"What?" Naoko cocked her head to look at Rei. She still didn't have a clue on how to tell if Rei was lying or telling the truth, her whisper like monotone made defying anything impossible. She also didn't know anything about Rei, which made it harder, she remembered a rumor that the two were living together, somewhat confirmed by the incident

"I came here on my own purposes"

'Thank you…' Shinji sighed, 'now please don't screw up by saying anything else'

"Why did you come into town then Rei?" Naoko asked, further sealing off Shinji's hope to survive this torture.

"I believe I've already answered that question" Rei replied

"I suppose I can live with that" Naoko sipped her tea with a look of defeat on her face. Shinji noticed the look and sighed relief, with some sort of miracle he didn't see coming, and Rei had just defeated the gossip queen at a round of interrogation. However with most conversations of this nature, it didn't end with just one round. Shinji was about to relax when round two commenced.

"So Shinji, you never did tell us how you and Rei started practicing together"

Shinji spluttered in his drink, feeling the invisible knife hit his back.

"What do you mean?"

"Yesterday, we weren't just on Mt. Akira Rd to give the guys a thrill ride in your car were we? And that wasn't your usual car yesterday, is it Rei's?"

Shinji sighed and dropped his head at the table, his feeling of safely now cold and dead. What came next was frightening to Shinji.

"I agreed to be taught drifting technique and high speed car handling controls by Shinji" Rei started"

"You agreed?" Naoko was surprised, Shinji was shocked

"Shinji was not intending to offer me tutorage of this certain discipline of driving originally, but my mother… managed to convince him and the owner of the tofu shop to have me taught… providing I have mo own vehicle"

Shinji was gulping breaths now, his heart was beating faster then the engine in his Trueno and his skin was as white as the FC. He couldn't tell it, it was impossible for him to begin imagining it, but Rei was not only speaking, normally, well more lively then he had ever known Rei to talk, but was somehow, In a very unlikely way, was defending Shinji and herself, and it was working. Naoko had seen the look on Shinji's face and wondered if his tea had made him ill all of a sudden. It was the color of suspicion, Naoko knew then to keep her attack up.

"Your car?"

'Oh crap… Rei isn't going to be answer that one' Shinji sighed 'and she might even say she is living with me now!'

"My mother is the original owner of the car; she has given it to me permanently on the condition that I only use it for the purpose of training"

Shinji was confused and scared at the same time, when you asked Rei a question, she normally answered honestly, which of course was a concern all the time. But for the first time, Shinji heard Rei lie…. Well exaggerate, if not quite exactly speak a complete lie. For a moment, Shinji's skin color returned to its normal completion.

"I see?" Naoko replied, continuing the attack, still assured that there was something fishy going on "so why did your mother suddenly ask Shinji?"

'Oh crap' Shinji said 'doesn't answer, don't answer' he was not entirely trusting of Rei's social abilities just yet.

"I believe the idea sparked during race between the blue cars a few weeks ago" Rei started

'Why is Rei answering for Shinji?' Naoko asked herself, 'and why does he look so white every time she even talks? Something is just not right'

"Shinji?"

"Yes?" he replied almost as a gasp, almost missing her call for him

"Is this true?"

"Yes it is" Shinji said "Rei's mother is an old friend of my mother, she recently moved to town to become a doctor"

"So I think I've heard" Naoko said "why was she at the race?"

"I believe Ms. Katsuragi invited my mother to the race" Rei replied, surprising Shinji as she took control again, still answering that honest monotone that rarely people could doubt. Shinji felt like he was in the passenger seat of the worlds fastest drift car and that Rei was blind going down Mt. Akira at full speed and performing a world record time on the pass. He felt more fear then his first battle on the mountain and quite possibly the most recent time he was at the controls of an evangelion. What scared him the most was that Rei was handling Naoko quite well.

"It's sort of like this" Shinji said "she was impressed or something with my skills and asked me to train Rei… I don't know the motive, but I can't exactly object to my mother"

"What possible motive would you suspect?" Naoko asked, throwing a curve ball at Shinji now seeing if anything would off balance him, since he had just passed close to blowing it. It left Shinji speechless trying to rack an answer quickly enough to, if he didn't soon, Naoko would have that opening and it would be all over

"I believe I can answer that" Rei said

'You can?' Shinji almost said

"Oh?" Naoko said, annoyed that someone answered in the defensive tone,

"My mother… on arriving to this town… asked me to socialize with the local population and to immerse myself in a hobby or sport, she believes this to be a sort of answer, therefore she enquired to Shinji about lessons"

Shinji felt like he just saw the ultimate blow in whatever sort of sport he could think of, Rei, the beginner, take on the skilled professional and just beat her at it. His shock was hard to hide, but what amazed him was that Rei was both lying and exaggerating her position on the matter _in his favor_ which was starting to make absolutely no sense in how she was keeping up with this fight.

"I suppose that makes sense" Naoko sighed "Shinji, man even with everything, you are sort of boring when it comes to gossip, you too Rei"

"I apologies that I couldn't be more interesting" Rei said

'Wow' Shinji said, "that's going to hurt' Shinji was about as confused as Naoko was on this shocking skill that Rei picked up almost overnight,

'Why the hell was Shinji so worried about this girl, she can certainly take care of her'

"I don't know what you two are worried about, especially you Shinji" Naoko said "its not like you two are sleeping in the same room or something is it?"

"That possibility wouldn't exactly be plausible, my mother doesn't entrust Shinji that much" Rei replied "that much is certain"

It wasn't the answer that caught Naoko's attention, she had quickly learnt to look at Shinji's reaction… which was comical enough given his color had gone back to a ghost white.

"Shinji… is there something you're not telling me?" Naoko said grinning, again on the attack,

"She was joking Naoko!" Shinji rebutted "Rei's only been to my place once and what would you think if my mother would do if she saw that?"

"She lets you complete in street races" Naoko giggled "she isn't exactly as strict as I'm led to believe

"I'm serious…" Shinji said, trying to control the topic, steering towards the escape.

"I know…I know…" Naoko calmed down "it's not like you'll be that lucky!"

Naoko had a good laugh at Shinji's expense; Rei didn't understand and continued to sip at her drink. A few minutes later, they finished and headed out of the café and really wondered down the street, and headed the beach by the lake; here there was a large park that backed the beach front. Without noticing it herself Rei had wondered ahead curiously, really not paying attention to the fact that Shinji and Naoko had slowed down.

"So Shinji" Naoko said "I suppose I've bothered you two enough anyway"

"That's alright" Shinji sighed "but did you have to be that persistent before?"

"Sorry" Naoko giggled "I just had to get a few questions of mine answered"

"What do you mean?"

"I only want one question I want you to answer" Naoko turned to block Shinji's path "and I don't want Rei to save your behind again this time"

"What are you talking about?"

"Don't you worry about that Shinji-kun…?" Naoko winked, in a tone that positively flowed to Shinji something ironic and altogether disturbing "I trust you with her"

"What…"

"Shinji…" Naoko started, her tone changed entirely "What did Ryosuke-sensei say to you yesterday?"

"What do you mean?"

"I know you Shinji, you're not the type to just back out and run away"

"Naoko, Ryosuke was…"

"He said 'I know why you moved here' Shinji-kun" Naoko worried that her punch wouldn't get the right affect, but she had her thirst to know "Shinji, what does he know that I don't know about you?"

Shinji was worried stalling in his mind, he couldn't think fast enough to sound confident, Shinji resisted the urge to fault and come honest, that thought had only the chance to live for a few nanoseconds, he was not as foolish as to consider it a full second. It was only a 2 second thought process that decided the reply and when he replied, his voice was broken,

"Naoko… I can't talk about it"

"Why cant you Shinji? Is it that bad?"

"No!" Shinji almost shouted, making heads around them turn for a second "Listen… its something important that I cant tell you right now, I promise I will some day, but I cant tell you now, not yet"

Naoko and Shinji came and stopped under a tree next to a bench.

"Shinji… I saw it in your face alright" Naoko said "what was it about?"

"Naoko… do you trust me when I say I will tell you one day?"

"Yes…"

"Then please… wait" Shinji said, loosing control fast "it's very hard for me to tell you, but I want to wait until I'm ready to tell you… and it's important that you don't misunderstand"

"Shinji…." Naoko could feel in her air around Shinji the stress of lying to a friend about this,

"I'm sorry… I know what it is about, but I can't tell you… not yet anyway"

"Shinji… I'm sorry I was insensitive…" Naoko looked down, her hair covering her eyes "I trust you… but please" she looked up again "don't make me and everyone else worry again, you did that a few days ago… don't do it again"

With that, Naoko left Shinji to himself, paused in space and time with his thoughts for a few minutes. Shinji felt the awkward sticky strain of the mess that he had left at the foot of his life. Shinji knew that from this point onwards, Naoko would never trust him ever again and there would be no forgiveness when he would… he would? Well he had to now, he just promised it and Naoko was particularly good at remembering that. He could only hope now that day wasn't too soon in the future.

"Shinji, why did you stop here?" Rei asked, having realized the two hundred meter distance she had opened with her roommate.

"Oh…Rei" Shinji said "come on, let's go home"

Rei nodded in agreement, mainly because she didn't have the thought then to ask why he was going home. Shinji felt a little bad for that private discussion with Naoko, but he couldn't just tell right there and then who he was and why he was hear, not yet anyway, hopefully never, but Shinji was pessimistic that he could hold such a secret forever. Even when he hoped never to return to it, Shinji also knew that it would drag around his neck until the day he died.

"Shinji, where did Naoko go?"

"Home" Shinji replied simple, returning his attention to going home himself.

"I see"

"Can I ask a question" Shinji said, now thinking about it for some reason,

"Of course"

"Before in the café, when Naoko was asking the questions, you lied in some answers… why?"

"I didn't lie once" Rei replied "but I did learn to slightly exaggerate my answers"

"Why… that's not like you at all"

"I learnt from a book that people like Naoko are bound to relieve the information, I was told by you and our guardians countless times that I must not revile the true nature of our history or the present living arrangements. I believe that was the logical approach to deny, if not alter the answer to apply that her understanding was false" Rei explained, somehow giving Shinji a headache "was I suppose to do this?"

"You were" Shinji scratched his head, feeling his headache that finally arrived "but you surprised me back there"

"I'm sorry if I made you worry"

Shinji wondered if Rei was being sarcastic, but her monotone was still making every word she said hard to understand. Maybe he thought that was the trick… it was hard to tell what Rei was thinking.

* * *

"So what do you plan to do?" Riksuto said, sober and very much serious and aware of the brevity of the situation

"It's very simple" Misato said "the question really matters about what we're all going to do"

Shinji, Rei, Misato and Riksuto were all at the table, Penpen would've had a seat too if could speak English, but everyone was here. Misato explained the situation to Riksuto earlier and said that there would be this meeting tonight, so far, everyone had come to the conclusion that backing out now would be impossible. Everyone at the table had to assume that Ryosuke was both aware of their past identity and that he would be serious in blowing the cover that each of them had enjoyed. Shinji and Misato were the most at risk, they were the most socially connected of the four, especially now that Shinji had entered the street racing world.

Misato had summarized that it was only a matter of time before someone but the math together, but she didn't expect it to come in the form of a threat, her entire investment and asset count lay in her business and this house, she had no savings of any nature, further Reinforced by the sudden expenditures from two extra bodies living at the house, and a unprecedented pinch for repairing the 86 and FC. Despite all of this, Shinji was the most worried out of the group, he alone had the greatest to loose.

His money was more secure then Misato; something thankfully possible from years of working and saving. Right now he could just pick up the keys, jump in the 86, and run away. But to where? Too many people knew who he would be in the major cities. What about to another small town? Somewhere that nobody would've heard of him from the street races, or from his time in NERV… but where in Japan was that exactly? Not a lot of people just forgot the angel attacks.

"My best conclusion" Riksuto said "this guy will tell no matter what; our best solution is too run"

"No!" Misato shouted "If we run, all he's going to do is follow us wherever we go?"

"And what do you suggest we do? Fight this idiot?" Riksuto said "can Shinji even defeat a R34?"

"I don't know…" Misato said with no confidence, she couldn't just assume that Shinji was able to perform magic on the race course, two races had taught her that it wasn't anywhere near possible to just hope for the best.

"There it is then" Riksuto said "it's too heavy a gamble to stay and then to run"

"Riksuto…" Misato snarled, "you coward… where the hell do you think we can run too!?"

"There had to be someone that we can…."

"There isn't anyone!" Misato shouted "we're all that's left, if we go down, it's all over!"

Shinji remained quiet, closing his eyes and praying this part of the meeting would get over already. Shinji didn't like to be this useless in something of this matter, but what could he do? There was no solution expect to defeat this guy… and only if it was certain he could. The 86 was no match for a R34; there was too much a power difference in the two cars.

"Cant we move to another town?" Riksuto said

"For what point? This shop is all we have; this and the car… your promise of money had failed to arrive… I have nothing to setup fresh again"

"What about Shinji, doesn't he have money?"

"Don't bring him into this!"

"Why should I" Riksuto fumed "he's the one who started this damn thing"

The slap from Misato almost echoed throughout the house. But it silenced the argument once and for all.

"Shinji… is not…. At fault" Misato snarled "do not dare blame him again!"

"Then what do you suppose we do" Riksuto said calmed down, rubbing her cheek.

The reply came as a surprise to everyone at the table, and it surprised everyone more because it was Rei who said it.

"We stay… and we ignore it"

"Rei…" Riksuto turned with renewed anger "have you lost your mind?"

"No…" Rei said "I am not crazy"

"Shinji?" Misato turned to him "what do you think?"

"Rei's right" Shinji said plainly,

For the second time, now only Misato and Riksuto were surprised and quietly shocked.

"Misato has a point, where do we run to?"

"We can go north" Riksuto replied

"No, he can just find out where I moved to" Shinji said "and we're unable to setup elsewhere, we have no finances to permit that, we could sell this property, but that takes time, by then he can just tell everyone anyway"

"Shinji?" Misato asked,

"We are too tied down here to do anything" Shinji said "and I personally don't want to run away anymore, I don't want to start over" Shinji looked over to Rei who nodded approvingly.

Misato was both pleasantly surprised and pleased that Shinji had just held his ground and even convinced herself to stay put. Up until then, Misato felt like running away, as irrational and impossible that decision was. Riksuto on the other hand was annoyed; she was now one against three in a debate about their future. What changed the thoughts was she remembered 'her' car wasn't in the repair shop now. Riksuto had decided then that she alone would run away.

"Fine then" Riksuto, "I personally don't want to be left holding the bag so if you will excuse me… Rei, we're going"

Misato's eyes were widened when she picked up the FC's car keys and proceeded to pick up the suitcase, not with clothes, but the one she left in the hall full of hard drives and her research data, something of a joke in less tense times that Riksuto prioritized data she couldn't even access over the bare essentials a woman her age needed.

"Misato, Shinji, I hope you can settle this… but I wont stay here when it fails"

"Riksuto you coward!" Misato screamed

Riksuto turned to Rei who hadn't gotten up yet. Shinji hadn't even the slightest where this would go next, but he couldn't have psychically prepared himself for what happened next.

"I won't go" Rei mouthed the words simply

"What do you mean?" Riksuto said "I'm your guardian!"

"Riksuto, while I believe I have acquired the same feeling of fear as everyone else… I am not as yet afraid of this man to see retreat as an option"

"Fine then" Riksuto said stating to sound irrational "you want to suffer?"

"No…" Rei said simply "but you haven't got enough money to last 4 days, and there isn't enough gas in your car to go 80 kilometers"

Riksuto grudged at the realization that she couldn't. Misato was white in surprise wondering how Rei suddenly had just acquired a rough ability to stand a debate. It frightened her that she had just put Riksuto in her place. Shinji wasn't surprised, already seeing it a few hours before.

"Shinji is right" Rei continued "if we run, he can follow us, and he only had to look 80 kilometers down the freeway for you if we fail"

Riksuto was the least bit calm or rational, but the off balance from being told by Rei that she couldn't run away was enough to trigger a headache of megaton size. Riksuto's brain slipped gears and finally her mind came to a halt, freezing the idea of running away and her in course planning for that.

"Fine…" Riksuto said, sighing defeat "I don't know what the hell you were taught… but this isn't some fantasy, he will tell someone eventually"

"We can prevent it" Shinji said "Ryosuke said he has to beat me at a race before that happens"

"Hang on…" Riksuto and Misato said I alarm, but only the latter continued "Shinji, are you seriously going to try?"

"What choice do I have?" Shinji replied.


	15. Episode 14: Warning Shots

After Evangelion

Episode 14: Warning Shots

It was a nightmare, there was no other term for it, it was both a dream and a vision of his worse fears, yet it was an indication of the path he had taken three days ago. There was no other way of explaining his actions better then in his sleep; the one place a person couldn't defend himself. Shinji felt like he was the spectator, the events all unfolded on a small television in front of him. But whenever he blinked, it always changed scenes.

"Takana Asakura with this special report" the report said at the news stand "after 2 years in hiding, 3 out of the 4 missing Eva pilots and 2 senior NERV officials have been located in the small town of Karasuyama-2…"

The screen changed to a scene outside the school where the entrance was barricaded with reporters, only stopped by the school gate, the thousands of questions aimed at Ryosuke with police officials

"I was greatly surprised myself, but the evidence I found made it impossible for me to think it was nobody else, the chances of these people all sharing the same name, all coming from Tokyo-3, their the correct age, too many factors are involved" Ryosuke said with a fake surprise.

The screen returned to Tanaka "Today, Japanese federal police placed the former NERV personnel under arrest for unaccounted criminal acts during the time of the angel attacks…"

As he continued the screen showed the tofu shop with literally thousands of cops and reports and people and pictures of police cars driving past with people under blankets… he was looking at himself. Tanaka continued to speak,

"the Japanese government released a statement today that they were intending to trial all five persons for high treason and war crimes, the convention for the laws which were reformulated after the London 2016 peace convention state that NERV operatives and pilots are accountable for the accidents caused by the evangelion program, further accounted to genocide acts, during the use of N2 mines, and other parameters to the law which out legal expert will explain to us today"

The scene then switched to three legal experts in international law. They continued to make the point clear to everyone the clear fact that what was once legal was abused heavily by NERV and as a result, these people would be held responsible for their actions, despite the fact that prior to the 2016 convention, these people were cleared of charges.

"I knew that kid was up to no good" the old lady at the hot springs resort spoke up with vigor, now on camera in front of her place "he's a criminal, and he keeps my customers up with his revving engines too"

"But how did you suspect him?"

"How old does a male have to be drive in this country, Shinji is too young for his license, even if he is of age now, he has been driving for two years, two years of underage driving, how do you explain that? NERV must've given him a permit or something"

The next quick interview was of Takashi and Touya, they were actually surprised about it all, and the attention of the media was almost overwhelming. All of them looked like they were being hassled about being street racers too

"You two raced against Shinji each being defeated" the reporter spoke rapidly "did you suspect anything of the man?"

"Shinji was a road racer with a few missing spots in his history, but we didn't care" Takashi said panicking "but we don't believe he was really a full blown evangelion pilot, I mean that's way beyond both out expectations.

"Shinji's guardian was the operations officer for the evangelions during the war, what was your opinion of her?"

"We'll she wasn't an old hag if that's what you mean, she seemed to be very concerned for him" Touya said, really wanting to say she was really hot on national television, "I didn't suspect any of them"

"Do you think that Shinji's actions breaking the international law reflected his entry into the street racing? I mean both of you do race…"

"What would that have to do with street racing?" Takashi spoke "Shinji was one skilled driver for his age okay… underage we figured, but we warned him about the dangers and he accepted it, Shinji wasn't a coward" Takashi spoke rapidly, loosing his grip on the situation.

Shinji blinked his eyes and all of a sudden he was watching via camera himself, Rei, Misato, Riksuto all in the stand at the centre of the courtroom, around them was hundreds of reporters, lawyers, judges, people all watching those 4 people.

"This is day 34 of the trial" Tanaka continued "the extend and revelations so far are amazing and go beyond belief… the judges today have announced they have come to a conclusion and will pass judgment today"

On the court room floor the head judge, will strangely looked similar to the one on the news special before. Stood up and started speaking from a piece of paper.

"Ikari Shinji, Tōji Suzahara, Rei Ayanami, Misato Katsuragi, Dr. Riksuto Akagi" he began "the court has heard for over a month now the horrific extend to the crimes you committed during your active duties in NERV; human experimentation, mass murder, destruction to property exceeding 18 trillion dollars, treason, and a numerous list of secondary crimes to numerous to make mention to the court at this time. The United Nations war crimes tribunal cannot ignore evidence and testimony to this extent without abandoning its own humanity first"

"It wasn't my fault…" Shinji said quietly, almost whimpering "I was ordered to do it…"

"Before the court passes judgment, do you have any final words, Shinji Ikari?"

"It wasn't my fault…" Shinji said louder "it wasn't my fault…"

"Very well." The judge ignored the comments "this court finds Ikari Shinji, Tōji Suzuhara, Rei Ayanami, Misato Katsuragi, Dr. Riksuto Akagi guilty of treason, guilty of murder, guilty of genocide, guilty of human rights violations, guilty of conspiracy, guilty of unlawful damage to government, civilian assets totaling over 18 trillion dollars…" The convictions kept going for three minutes until the judge finally said "this tribunal is adjourned"

"It wasn't my fault!" Shinji finally screamed…

* * *

"It wasn't my fault…" he whispered. The nightmare was over, but Shinji still couldn't tell it or not, his trust in his senses was gone. His eyes took awhile to take in the surroundings, but there was not a lot of time before his eyes suddenly saw Rei looking down at him.

"What!" Shinji said, rejecting in the opposite direction, in this case back towards the wall side of his bed and the window. "Rei!"

"Shinji… are you alright?" Rei simple said, the almost monotone voice not indicating if she was worried or not,

"Yea…" Shinji said "just a really weird nightmare…"

"I see…" Rei sat up and looked to him.

Shinji sat up and grabbed his knees trying to regain his composure. Rei didn't say anything else for another minute, but she was worried about him, even if her ability to display that emotion was a complete fail. Rei wanted to help, and her experience was only complied from reading from her books, and if this was anything from those situations, it was best if he could help him.

"Shinji… can you tell what the nightmare was about" Rei said getting off the floor and dropping her futon blanket and sitting on the bed, which only had the effect of further alarming Shinji.

'Rei, don't you own any sleepwear?!' Shinji yelled in his mind, all Rei was wearing were her undergarments and a loose shirt on top of them "Rei… what are you…"

"Please…" Rei said "every time you have a nightmare now, you worry me…"

Shinji calmed down and was equivalently surprised at the words. As a result, Shinji felt off balanced. He told himself that he had to get out of this attitude he had of Rei, it wasn't like before, she had clearly changed and he had to stop pretending otherwise.

"Rei… it's not as bad as you think" Shinji lied, still out of it

"Don't say that" Rei said softly, moving closer to him "Shinji, you'll sleep better if you would you told someone"

"Fine…" Shinji sighed, ignoring the alarming voice saying that Rei was acting strange… stranger then normal and he should have defenses all the way up "it's like I was watching television… I cant describe it all, but it was all about us being exposed and us being taken to the war crimes tribunal in Europe… we were all guilty… everyone thought so"

"Shinji…" Rei started "are your dreams always this complex?"

"Not really, they are usually very straight forward; this one went all over the place" Shinji said,

"Are you worried about if you loose this match?"

"No…" Shinji said without any energy "I'm worried that Ryosuke will just do it anyway"

"But that doesn't make any sense" Rei said

"Oh course it doesn't" Shinji replied "he doesn't have to keep his word"

"Logically, if he really wanted to do it, why hasn't he already?" Rei replied in a whisper "he gave you his word that he'll hold off on exposure on the condition that you defeat him"

"That's true" Shinji felt relieved and his head started to cool down "but still, I talked to Kazama and Kensuke about it, they told me the chances of me actually pulling it off are slim, if not impossible. They told me that the R34 has too much power compared to the 86, and even with my experience so far, it would be very hard for me to match"

"But will you give up?" Rei said "even with knowing that?"

Shinji thought about that for a minute, he certainly had no intentions on giving up on anyone anytime soon, if there is was a slim chance he could pull it off, Shinji had to find it soon and exploit it so he could win. While that half of the mind was thinking the problem, the other half was now taking notes on the changed Rei Ayanami; she was almost like a normal girl if it wasn't for the monotone voice and her directness, where the hell was she learning this? She kept mentioning a book of some type, but the only books she was reading was those comic ones.

"No I haven't…" Shinji said "I can't give up, not with everything like this on the line now"

"Shinji, I know you can do it..." Rei readjusted herself without Shinji noticing, she was right next to him now, her eyes glaring into him, in a weak attempt to show some sort of emotion called care.

"Alright…" Shinji said, feeling much better "lets just both of us get some sleep alright?"

"Okay…" Rei said getting up and starting what would be the most disturbing thing in Shinji's week so far. Rei suddenly moved the blanket on Shinji off for a moment and crept into bed next too him; She was only halfway in bed when Shinji's alarm spiked and his calm disappeared

"Rei!" he spoke, very loudly "What do you think you're doing!!!"

Rei stopped without moments thought and looked even more surprised then what Shinji was at present. More surprise of confusion then surprise of anything else.

"I don't understand" Rei said, after a minute of silence "you said we both should get some sleep…"

"I meant go back to bed…" Shinji said "I don't recall saying jump into my bed"

"I don't understand, the book said you'd sleep better after talking about it if I was in bed"

"What book said that?" Shinji asked in alarm,

Without being asked, Rei got out of bed and took a step to Shinji's desk, there on the top were books, with some sticky notes bookmarked on some pages for some reason. Rei handed it over to Shinji after she sat back on the bed. Shinji was sitting up in bed again, infuriated with Rei now, even despite her attempts at calming her down. Shinji only had to read a few pages before his worse fears were present.

"Rei… just so I have this right…" Shinji said starching his head a minute later "yesterday when you managed to lay our way out of that thing with Naoko, the conversation last night with Misato and Riksuto, the other things in the last week or so… you did it because the characters in this book do it?"

"I didn't go exactly by their lines" Rei confirmed for Shinji's displeasure "but I studied the situations in the books and too careful attention to how people acted and how they responded"

"You read shoujo manga so you could learn how to act normally?" Shinji's voice was strained and tired; his disbelief was evident even to Rei.

"I mainly looked into that type of manga for answers, but there were some other books that I was advised to read as well"

Shinji's skin turned ice cold and he decided that if he was going to find out, better now then later on. Shinji got out of bed and took the step to his desk and moved the chair out. In the space lined up against the wall was 12 or so massive books of manga, he picked the one off the top and recognized the title straight away. Only just to confirm it, Shinji flipped several pages, both confirming and for the first time in a while scaring him.

"Rei, this is hentei!" Shinji slapped the book shut and dropped it back onto his desk "why are you reading this crap?!"

"I just explained why" Rei said, the look on her face was one of utter confused disbelief, as if for some reason, what she was suppose to do wasn't the right thing after all, if that was the case, then Shinji was going to have to explain it.

"Shinji… I still don't understand" Rei said without any attempt at emotion "the book said…"

"Rei…" Shinji strained again, sitting down on his bed next to Rei "there is a difference between these books and real life…"

"So is it wrong to base everything off the books?"

"Yes…" Shinji said harshly "just where did you get this idea anyway?!"

* * *

"You bastard" Shinji grumbled loudly as he strangled Kensuke, utterly shocking Hikari and Toji "What… were… you… thinking"

"Cut it out!" Hikari yelled at the two of them, making heads not already focused on the fight turn towards it. Toji dragged Shinji free of Kensuke. Shinji calmed down momentarily. Hikari was already annoyed at Shinji and she was not going to take sorry and a proper reason for an answer. Toji was just as confused why Shinji was suddenly pissed at Kensuke, just that Kensuke was now frightened. Rei who was unpacking her things had stopped, was just as confused as everyone else.

"Shinji what the hell is the matter with you?!" Kensuke

"What the hell were you thinking!?" Shinji repeated the question

"What is this about" Hikari said "Shinji?"

"Kensuke sold Rei a bunch of manga, saying that she could read how to act normally by following these examples!" Shinji said angrily; without being asked, Shinji removed one of the books, the hinted one out of his bag and gave it to Hikari, who was just now coming into the confused stage of her moods. She received the manga and started flipping through the manga.

"Hey, as they say" Kensuke said "Everything you need to know about life, you can learn from Shoujo Manga!"

Hikari flipped a few pages, her blush then spiked when she saw a certain page that had a bookmark in it that had the little tab saying 'sit: roommate having nightmare", her embarrassment converted energy into her fists and her anger roared to life. She dropped the book on the desk and was embarrassed and angry. She turned to Rei who was now up to speed on the conversation.

"Rei… is this all true?"

"It's the truth" Rei said in the clear monotone voice that nobody could determine which emotion she held "Shinji discovered this last night and said he would get to the bottom of this today"

Hikari turned, and swiftly started to strangle Kensuke.

"Kensuke, how the hell is getting naked with the subject a Shoujo Manga!" Hikari yelled at him form a distance of a few inches "What the hell is the matter with you!"

Toji didn't bother trying to help Kensuke, he had heard enough and if Kensuke didn't see it coming, then it was his own fault for not thinking it out enough. Eventually, Hikari overcame her desire to deprived Kensuke of oxygen had been satisfied enough. She calmed down and silently counted to ten before continuing. But before the conversation could go anywhere else, Kensuke and Naoko walked into the room.

"Good morning" Naoko said, yawning the end of it, yet again she had stayed up late with only god knew what"

"Shinji, Rei, everyone" Kazama said, unaware of what was going on.

"Morning" Shinji said, trying his best to bury the previous conversation

"Man, hope today isn't going to be a killer like yesterday" he started his customary morning rant, "I don't know what the hell good its going to do me in the future anyway"

"Well, it's required, but the tests are over for the meantime" Toji said; only to keep Hikari happy, Shinji shrugged it off,

"Hey Shinji, how is practice going with Rei?"

"Very well actually" Shinji said "I've got the 86 back on Monday and now me and Rei are practicing in the cars at the same time; I thinks it's a chase and follow exercise"

"You mean Rei can actually drive well?"

"well she isn't spinning out and dinting her car anymore, she still has trouble with tight corners and high speed corners… whenever she chases me I have to stay slow so she can keep up with me… then there is the fact she can only do it two times a day"

"Two times a day?" Kensuke enquired, quietly inserting himself into the conversation, despite the look he got from Hikari "don't you only practice at night"

"Riksuto is enforcing a strict regime for Rei" Shinji sighed, "she feels like she needs to maximize the number of times Rei is going out on the road now, it helps, and we can get 2 runs down Mt. Akira in a day"

"So Rei even practices in the mornings now?" Toji said "Hell and I thought... our exams were hard enough"

Shinji noticed the slip in Toji and he swore that he was about to slip the word evangelion in by mistake. That was odd enough that it lingered in Shinji's head for a few more seconds, Toji rarely slipped a word, he was always direct and straight forward, a little too much sometimes, but non the less; he rarely make a mistake in his speech.

"So Shinji" Kensuke asked "can we tag along?"

"Not for the moment" Shinji said sternly "for the moment, I'm going to keep the practice sessions as normal as possible, I don't have time for joy rides"

"I see" Kazama said, feeling somewhat rejected by the news.

"Any word on Ryosuke?"

"Not a thing" Shinji said plainly, trying to make it sound as casual as possible,

"What is the big deal with him anyway" Kazama started "why is he picking on you?"

"I don't know" Shinji lied in their faces, the went on a thought he didn't lie "he isn't targeting just me anymore thought, she seems more interested in Rei now for some reason"

Hikari gave Shinji a concerning look that told him to back off the subject; it was too risky with these two and so many students nearby. Shinji however couldn't just drop the topic as that was just as suspicious.

"Shinji, is there anything we need to know?" Naoko said, again trying to open up and try break loose some information, just like she had been doing since Monday.

"No… its nothing important" Shinji said the same thing since Monday, "honest, you can relax about that Naoko"

"Okay" Naoko said, not even attempting to push anymore, he wasn't going to give away anything now, like yesterday, but she could try tomorrow. Naoko and Kazama made their leave and exited the classroom, no doubt in the hunt for other interesting gossip. Before Shinji could sigh, Hikari grabbed his arm.

"What is it Hikari?"

"Shinji, I have a worry on my mind"

"What about?"

"Just how long can we go without being discovered?"

"I guess until I race, I don't quite know"

"Because I've been thinking about it" Hikari started, Toji was close by and was just as interested.

"Shinji, what about our history reports we handed in on Monday?" Hikari said

"What about them?"

"What if Ryosuke fails them or brings it up their odd reports?"

"Nothing odd about them" Shinji thought about it for a minute and then his face changed, "well I don't suspect that Ryosuke will be marking them anyway, it's not his subject to teach"

"I suppose your right"

* * *

Even during classes, there was usually one or two teachers who didn't have a class, Ryosuke who didn't, took advantage of this and didn't arrive to work until ten that morning, he walked down the empty halls and made his way to the teachers office, where he saw the two other teachers not on duty, the PE teacher, and the history teacher.

"Good morning Kenji-sensei" Ryosuke said as he dropped his bag on the chair next to the high school's history teacher,

"Good morning…" Kenji said less graciously, he was tired from marking the papers and he didn't exactly like Ryosuke. He had already made an enemy of some of the teachers in the faculty so far and his sarcastic attitude was becoming the bane annoyance the students were already suffering with. He had already tried to pick up every female member of staff with his charm, which failed every time.

"So are these the history reports on the angel attacks?" Ryosuke said picking one off the top of the pile, it was written by Hikari.

"Yes…" Kenji continued; marking the girl with the surname of Sakuraba a C for her report and placing it on the pile of C ranked reports. Ryosuke noted that at once and checked the cover sheet of the assignment he picked up off the top. It was an A as if that didn't surprise him. He started flicking through the document and was surprised at the in depth report of the war, Hikari had focused a lot on the battles in Tokyo-3… well that's no surprise, she lived there of course, but the one regarding the attack on the UN carrier group surprised him, more then enough detail about how the attack was carried out.

"Someone has a serious perfectionist issue" he dropped the assignment on the pile of A grade reports.

"Id mind you didn't say that; she did a very good job on her assignment" Kenji said,

"I don't doubt it" Ryosuke picked up the one with the label of Kensuke, "she is a little too neat for someone her age though, and she is one real mean spirited class representative"

Kenji didn't like the way Ryosuke talked about the Students, they weren't always fun to teach, but they weren't idiots either and in this school, the morale between everyone was generally good. Expect Ryosuke had changed that and was completely disrespectful of his peers and almost ignorant of the students. Kenji ignored it and picked up the next on the stack with 'Shinji Ikari' printed on the top.

"Oh, him?" Ryosuke noted, "I'd be rather interested in seeing what he wrote"

"Why?" Kenji said a touch annoyed "Shinji is pretty diligent in his studies, his conduct as a student is a little strange, but I've never seen him do anything crazy… oh there is that rumor about him… but I don't believe it"

"What rumor might that be?"

"That he's been street racing or something" Kenji said flipping the page "even if it's true, I don't think any of the other staff would really care. Shinji doesn't seem the type to be into that stuff"

"You know" Ryosuke said "this report is pretty strange when you think about it"

"What?" Kenji said, he stopped reading and looked at Ryosuke. He had the thought that he had missed something, but in 15 years of teaching, he hadn't once miss-marked and assignment.

"there Is nothing wrong content wise" Ryosuke said with famed impression "but the context of some of the things he wrote is a little out of character"

"What do you mean?" Kenji picked up the report out of Kensuke's hands and started reading over the carrier attack incident. Nothing was wrong with the wording; it was descriptive as if… as if Kensuke was there himself.

"See what I mean" Ryosuke said "he's saying it like he was on the bridge of _Over the Rainbow_ and he saw the whole thing"

"That's not really all that strange" Kenji dismissed the thought "I've had students try that approach all the time"

"But did you read about this computer virus that ended up being an angel?" Ryosuke flipped to the page about the said attack. Kenji stopped again and racked his head. He had heard about it once before somewhere, but he thought that was a little hard to believe, and no official source had ever claimed it ever happened. Why hadn't he noticed that?

"Curious" Kenji said "well… I suppose Kensuke is going to have to explain himself, even if had a confirmed source, id like to know how he knew that"

"You realize that Hikari said the same thing?" Ryosuke said "take a look"

Kenji didn't understand why Ryosuke was suddenly so interested in the context of his students work, but the thing about the virus attack was interesting. It took Kenji a few minutes to locate the page and there it was; Hikari was just as precise about it, except she cited a reference being a new article that came out not too long ago.

"Well, that answers that" Kenji relieved at himself, he didn't want to reprimand Hikari, she was too diligent a student for it. He assumed that Kensuke had to have used the same source. There wasn't a rule about that; just Kensuke was a little more detailed about the magi super computers then Hikari.

Kenji shrugged it off and returned to reading Shinji's report. He didn't see the look on Ryosuke's face. He was starting to wonder if Kenji didn't see it or not, how could he not put two and two together yet. He picked up a random document and read it. To his surprise, this student didn't know the names of the pilots. It was just stated as 'first child' and 'third child' and so on.

"That's odd" Ryosuke said "is it just me or did everyone just refer to the pilots by number?"

"I didn't really think about that?" Kenji said, now getting annoyed by Ryosuke's constant critiquing of his marking.

"I don't think that's really important" Kenji said "I didn't tell the students to write about them, just the war itself"

"I see" Ryosuke said, returning his attention to the B pile of reports he had grabbed one from. He picked one up from it again

"Toji Suzahara" he picked it up and started flipping through it, Kenji was about to ask him to stop doing that when Ryosuke spoke.

"Which one is Toji again?"

"Toji?" Kenji thought about it for a second "oh! He's the one with the missing leg. Poor kid said it was a car accident, about 2 years ago"

"I see…" Ryosuke said 'that's an easy enough excuse to buy'

"The thing about his assignment I was disappointed in" Kenji continued "was his description of the time unit 3 was overrun by that angel"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, according to his report, when the pilot of unit one refused to attack unit three, NERV central command activated some sort of auto-pilot system and that wrecked unit 3" Kenji said leaning back in his chair "now the official story was that unit one attacked without the pilot protesting"

"Feel like Toji was showing a little sympathy to the unit one pilot?"

"I suppose…" Kenji said "the pilot of unit three died from what the report said, but after the war, there have been suspicions about that whole incident about of the pilot really was in control"

"So that's why he was marked down?"

"That's right" Kenji said "ill have to speak with him about it" Kenji turned back to Shinji's report, he hoped that he wouldn't ask anymore questions about the reports. Ryosuke didn't for about five minutes. Ryosuke unpacked his bag finally and setup his papers, he'd be going into his class this afternoon and pushing his students to do their work, he was half a week behind according to the timetable, but he couldn't imagine how that was possible however.

"This is odd" Kenji said "Shinji's report is very interesting?"

"Oh?" Ryosuke turned around "let me have a look"

"Its not that I doubt anything in the report" Kenji said "but his perspective is a little troubling"

"It seems to cite the commander of NERV as being a careless, arrogant…" Ryosuke said "well, everyone knew Gendo was a war criminal, I suppose Shinji is putting that sort of spin on things"

"But it was like you said before" Kenji said "it was like he was there, he doesn't say it, but he makes it sound like he witnessed it"

"His description of the volcano incident is nice, his description of the virus incident is a little lackluster, and you noticed he said the same thing about the 'unit three' incident?"

"Yes…" Kenji said "but Shinji's explanation of events makes a lot of sense"

"This last one is interesting" Ryosuke said "he goes into detail describing the very last angel attack"

"That's what got me" Kenji said, feeling a tad annoyed that Ryosuke seemed to be enjoying this "he goes as far as saying that the angel was an evangelion pilot"

"Well, when the second child went down and went nuts" Ryosuke started to quote his memory of the war "they brought in another kid"

"Shinji's conclusions are messed up" Kenji said "but he does make sense of it… but what id like to know is how he knew all of this? I didn't teach this sort of thing in class"

"What's not to wonder about Shinji?" Ryosuke said "rumors about him racing, rumors about his personnel life, and his particular knowledge of the angel wars"

Kenji put Shinji's report on the side, he decided that he would have to talk to the deputy director about this report, and knowing how she did things, his guardian and Shinji would be in office tomorrow to explain things. It wasn't really concerning, but Shinji was a little strange. Content wise he could give it an A and not really care, nothing really wrong with it, but then he thought back to his classes. While everyone was usually bored of the topic, Shinji seemed to be especially disconcerted with it, not that he was paying attention, but as if he had seen it all before and was bored of the subject.

"Anyway…" Ryosuke said, finally satisfied that he had planted a seed of curiosity in that old man's head "as much as id love to read these, I'm going out to buy lunch"

'Then why did you bloody annoy me in the first place?' Kenji raged in his mind, he returned to his work not saying anything else, Ryosuke shrugged it off and walked out the door with his GT-R's keys.

* * *

"Id say its impossible" Sousuke said bluntly

"Come on, isn't there anything that could give Shinji the edge?" Misato said

"Nothing" Sousuke said, "okay… if Shinji didn't have so many problems with the 86 as he does, his balance and counter steering was a little better and his speed and braking was better, he'd have no trouble"

This meeting had to happen because Misato needed the information; Sousuke had his doubts, and to Misato and Riksuto's surprise; Takashi and Touya were also just as concerned. They weren't completely enemies with Misato and her driver anymore, and they were reportedly just as concerned with Ryosuke as Shinji would be, albeit Shinji actually knew the reasons for the threats. Riksuto was just as spectacle as confused about why these two clowns were important to talk to.

"So it's impossible" Riksuto sighed

"Not quite" Sousuke explained "it's not quite as bad, it's just a matter of cars"

"What do you mean?" Misato spoke,

"Shinji isn't hopelessly outclassed skills wise…" Touya started "we observed Ryosuke before, his practice sessions and his previous races"

"And?"

"Ryosuke is too Reliant on the power his skyline can give him, his skills are on the equal to Shinji at the moment, but the problem is Shinji would have the upper hand here"

"I don't get it" Misato said "you just said that Shinji couldn't beat Ryosuke"

"No, he can..." Sousuke replied, "But for the moment, let's pretend that he has say…. Touya's Silvia"

Misato swore he heard a grumble from Touya's direction which could only mean that he wasn't exactly happy with that statement. None the less, she and Riksuto paid attention.

"in those conditions, Shinji would have the advantage of his understanding of course" Sousuke said "he had been delivering to the hotels for 2 years, almost every day, he is roughly familiar enough that he doesn't have a problem with his speed and cornering"

"But that's all" Misato said "and Ryosuke isn't driving a S13, he's driving a R34"

"The power difference between the Trueno and the Skyline is too great Ryosuke only had to accelerate on the straightway and he's already beaten Shinji, no matter now good Shinji is at the moment"

"Wouldn't swapping his 86 with the FC a better idea?" Riksuto said

"no" Takashi said "Ryosuke has stated he'll only race the 86, swapping it for the Mazda you have doctor will be considered cheating in any case"

"Then why bother have the race?" Riksuto said, "He's outgunned already, why bother with the race"

"What are the best chances of improving the odds?" Misato said, trying to sound calmer then she was inside,

"Quite honestly…" Sousuke said "the best I can do is take the 86 and fix the engine up to max the horsepower out… but the condition, there is a lot to it… but it will take one hell of a miracle to pull off"

"Only thing we can do then" Misato said

"I only got one question" Takashi said, "why is Ryosuke so desperate to battle Shinji"

"I don't know" Riksuto said, hiding her now cold feelings about lying to these gentlemen.

"He said he knows who Shinji really is" Touya said "personally I'd like to know what he means by that"

Misato felt that lying now would only destroy her only backup in this fight, but their vow to not tell anyone went above that, the few seconds she took to decide were most complex, quickest, and most exhausting moments of the week so far.

"We cannot tell you" Misato said, "I don't want to sound like a snob, or something else, but it's important to understand the nature of it"

The three men across the table nodded.

"I wish we could tell you, but I don't believe now would be a good time, maybe one day it will; but right now its imperative nobody learns it"

"Okay" Touya said, feeling the cold sting of being shut down and being told kindly that it was non of his business, in a respectful and forgiving manner.

"Shinji probably doesn't want you to know yet" Riksuto said "when it comes to this, he is… very concerned about the possibility of it surfacing"

"I understand" Sousuke said "but if whatever this is the motivation of Ryosuke, Shinji is going to have to face the reality soon, it's going to break if he looses"

"he's well aware of that" Riksuto said "as I said, he is very concerned and is worried to a very extreme point that its causing him sleep deprivation and stress"

"Then you better pray hard for that miracle" Takashi said finally, closing the thoughts of this meeting and coldly settling his fears once and for all. Whatever Roysuke had on Shinji; the stakes were definitely high enough now, he wondered for a moment what impact it would have on him for a passing thought. Not much, Shinji would get over it, people would forget, but if it was something nobody could forget.

'Damn Shinji, glad it's you and not me' Takashi thought to himself.

* * *

Only because of the vagaries of scheduling did Kensuke end up taking the watch of the store with Asisaka. All day today he had been taking abuse from Hikari when Rei detailed the contents of the other 11 or so books, to which the class representative was not the least amused. Asisaka had heard it off Naoko and was only left confused on why would Rei need to read books to learn social manners, though it did answer a lot of questions about why she had bought some rather 'interesting' books off her in the previous week or so, and why Kensuke didn't seem to care.

"So what now?"

"Either today or tomorrow Rei will come back with the books" Kensuke said "then Shinji will slit my throat and then Misato will chuck my body in the lake…"

"Its not that bad is it?" Asisaka said felt a twinge of embarrassment having asked him about it only minutes before.

"I hope Shinji gets over it… I mean she did learn some things, but I didn't expect that to happen?"

"What to happen?" Asisaka asked, she didn't actually know what made Shinji find out, as far as Kensuke knew, Asisaka didn't actually know Rei lived with Shinji, in the same room even. Asisaka had long since suspected it, and she was pretty sure that was the case now, despite Shinji's constant denials. She could understand why Shinji was so secretive about it, Naoko, she had learnt, one mean player when it came to gossip.

"So what was the problem to begin with?" Asisaka continued,

"Well, the problem with Rei was she was always such a quiet person, she never socialized and was in the hospital a lot when she was a kid" Kensuke started, making use of the story Shinji invented if someone asked. "She was also pretty deaf sometimes, she grew out of it and I suppose she is normal now…"

"But she doesn't really know how to socialize" Asisaka said "then why does she hang around Shinji?"

"I suppose Shinji understands her a bit better, I cant explain all the details well" Kensuke faked embarrassment "I suppose in the context of things, Rei also understands Shinji a lot better then anyone else"

"I see" Asisaka said, her voice dejected for the moment, she pondered that for a moment when she.

"Rei can be smart, obedient, and in Shinji's case, a support of some sorts… but I doubt that Shinji sees her anything else more then a little sister, certainly Rei looks at him like older brother figure"

Asisaka cocked her eyebrow in amused surprise, it was actually interesting now. Kensuke wondered if she found it somewhat disturbing in hearing that and her reaction was of disgust and disbelief. But her actual reply was more surprising;

"What kind of person is Shinji?" Asisaka asked, now it was Kensuke's turn to be surprised,

"Well…" Kensuke decided, for the sake of his actions so far, he'd just be honest "quiet mainly, he can be shy around people, he doesn't really take class seriously, he's a bit depressed sometimes, I guess that comes his best friend moving to Germany. She wasn't exactly supportive of Shinji, but she did do sort of the same thing Shinji does for Rei. Apart from that? Shinji doesn't say a lot, you know that…"

Kensuke was stuck for words he really was lacking them, Asisaka could see that and she wondered if Kensuke was afraid that Shinji might take it out on him if he said the wrong thing again.

"…I really don't know, just that Shinji seems to trust Rei a lot, and she seems to be completely loyal to her… as I said, she is like Shinji's little sister, I wouldn't bet the house against her wanting to help him out"

"So Rei needs Shinji… for guidance and support?" Asisaka concluded her voice feeble "do you think that Rei might…"

"Might?"

"Be sort of… you know…"

"In love with him?" Kensuke said with small alarm, "I wouldn't think so; Rei isn't that emotionally dependent on Shinji, why do you ask anyway?"

"Just curious" Asisaka said, doing her best counter-blush method "I'm sort of interested though… he doesn't seem like the brother type, but he does it anyway"

"didn't think so either, he sort of is like a roommate in appearance" Kensuke said, almost fouling up the cover, though by the way Asisaka was going, it was like she already knew.

"the problem is, Rei doesn't know how to be a girl" Kensuke said, "Riksuto is too busy and too demanding, Misato isn't an example to follow, and Shinji is the only other person she trusts, so she sticks close to him cause she doesn't know how to make friends with everyone else"

"That's crazy"

"Sure is, but there it is" Kensuke concluded "Shinji is trying his hardest in the spare time to teach her, but what time is there for that? School, work, racing… he doesn't have the time, by the time he gets home from the night run, he'd be exhausted to give Rei a lesson is being a girl 101"

"Has Hikari ever tried?" Asisaka asked

"Not that I know of…" Kensuke stopped a customer came to the desk to purchase DVDs. Asisaka took the time to consider what she had heard and her impressions were correct; to that end she was actually happy. If Rei only saw Shinji as a brother, then what was there to worry about? The whole thing about Rei surprised her though; a girl with no emotions and feelings, it was the biggest load of bull she had heard, but with her several meetings with Rei, it did add up to that unusual conclusion and Kensuke didn't seem to want to lie at a time like this.

"Sorry, where were we?" Kensuke's mind track was completely off balance, Asisaka decided to use this chance.

"You were talking about Rei" Asisaka said

"Oh yea…" Kensuke said, not realizing he hadn't "what Rei lacks in social will, she can make up with integrity"

"What do you mean?"

"I said before that she trusts Shinji completely right?"

"Yes you did"

"What I mean is, Rei likes him… a lot"

"Hang on, didn't you say before Rei was like Shinji's little sister?"

"Yes I did" Kensuke said "but little sisters can like their older brothers too… in this case, Rei only has Shinji, and he does honestly try hard for her. Her dependence on him would manifest a need for him that I suppose would turn into love at some point"

"Is that sort of sick?"

"I don't think so" Kensuke replied in a matter-a-fact tone "Rei probably wouldn't consider it that way anyway"

"So all you're saying is; Rei is loyal to Shinji, because that's all she has really?"

"That's right" Kensuke said "If we could get someone Shinji 'trusts' to be friends with her and I suppose help her develop some social skills, then I suppose it would help him"

Asisaka thought about it, it was selfish to think that Shinji would be in that sort of relationship with Rei to begin with, but now it was all explained, she felt a lot better then before. But her feelings for Shinji were somewhat changed for it; Shinji had people he cared for. Was she really getting in the way of him, would helping Rei with her problem also help Shinji? but the would he trust Asisaka to? He had trusted her once to run the shop, but Shinji was desperate and her help was almost insignificant then.

Compared to Rei, Asisaka was merely nothing more then a friend. But she didn't want that to remain that way, she decided that she had to help him in some way.

* * *

"Well today was certainly interesting" Misato said as she lowered the shutters outside and walked back into the building, Riksuto, whom had taken the day off for the lunch time meeting was helping clean up the store which had barely been open today, she was surprised she even sold any today.

"Misato, aren't you the least bit worried?" Riksuto said

"About Shinji? No" Misato said

"You remembered the conversation today; don't you realize the seriousness of the situation?"

"I do, but what can we do about it?" Misato said, "If we loose when he races, its over, if we run away we stand Ryosuke blowing our cover anyway. If we win, Ryosuke might just blow it"

"I like how straight forward you are about this" Riksuto said "I could almost describe this as a sort of mental unbalance"

"Riksuto, do you really care so much if we're found out?" Misato said "okay, a few people will distrust us, okay a few people will know where to send death threats"

"You're insane" Riksuto said in disgust "you need help, seriously"

"Cut it out" Misato laughed "besides, with our luck, Ryosuke might loose and he'll have to stick to his word then"

"Only… if only" Riskuto repeated "he sticks to his word"

"If Ryosuke was serious about blowing it" Misato replied "Rei's right, he would've done it by now"

The two of them walked upstairs and went into the living room, and turned on the television for sports. Penpen was annoyed as he no longer could enjoy the mud wrestling that was on. Misato wondered if she would ever get around to training Penpen out of that habit. Just then the phone rang. Misato sighed and went to get it; she had just gotten comfortable in the sofa.

"Hello, Katsuragi tofu shop" Misato said as formally as her aptitude allowed. The voice on the other end surprised her

"Katsur…Misato-san, its Rei" immediately Misato noticed that her voice had something in it, it took a nanosecond to figure it out; she sounded very frightened and worried. Misato adjusted her grip on the phone.

"Rei… What's going on, did one of the cars break down or something" Misato felt like getting a beer, but the next sentence from Rei stopped that thought process, and all others completely.

"Misato-san…" Rei chocked on her words "you should come to the hospital… quickly"

"Rei!" Misato went serious instantly; Riksuto turned around and took immediate note of the phone call "what is it?"

"There was an accident…"

* * *


	16. Episode 15: Causality count

After Evangelion

Episode 15: Causality count

Emergencies are by definition something one cannot plan or react terribly well to, and panic in times like this seldom improves the situation. With the phone call being the all important trigger point of a detonation in everyone's lives, so had commenced the series of unavoidable events that would forever change Misato and Riksuto's life in this town, The reaction to Rei's phone call couldn't have come at a worse time. The very thought of the race would only return as soon as she was reminded of it, but Misato's mindset hadn't reached that the stage where she would be able to consider the options like a rational person.

After only what had to have been only several minutes, things instantly went into a confused and disorganised rush of emotions and psychical actions. The first problem was the obvious to Misato, her car was gone, and so was Riksuto's Mazda. The hospital was an hour by foot. Misato automatically decided to call the only person she could trust to get a lift. But in her confusion and hyperactive reaction to events she didn't understand entirely, she hadn't the clue the number to Sousuke's shop. Her mind panicked until she remembered something and quickly she had looked up the number to Shinji's workplace. Only the vagaries of her luck now would hope that the store was still open.

She had almost shouted into the phone with a frightened tone, she could almost not handle it, and her emotions had just started to take a serious worry about Shinji, the news, her lack of understanding, the information she had wasn't sufficient, her imagination all started working, proving the worst timing for Misato sense of control over herself. Riksuto took over and talked to Kensuke, and got Asisaka on, insisting that her older brother as soon as possible come by the store and pick up the both of them. On being asked why, the doctor couldn't express it more clearly then in the words Rei had decided in her conscious thought that delivered on the worse of news;

"There has been an accident"

With only those words did Asisaka's own panic alarm trigger, to whom the accident was affecting she didn't know, but by the tone of the voice, the seriousness, it felt like the end of one of the two lives had suddenly reached the final page. Her words to ask for more information was answered before her lips received the orders to move.

"Shinji"

Asisaka's reaction was of a person being shot in the stomach, her eyes wide and hollow and her mouth dropped in an energy deprived shock. Kensuke took immediate note and had yanked the phone away and took the information almost as seriously. While he had heard the same thing. Asisaka had done as she was originally instructed, rummaging though her bag for the phone, being clumsy as per panic and fear also took over like it had already done so for Misato. She had rung home, Sousuke had picked up; but by this point her words were almost inaudible and her older brother wondered what was going on. The events Kensuke saw, he took action and saved Asisaka.

Despite all of this, Kensuke's actions were by far the bravest and most controlled so far of the people who had learnt, and as a result his actions saved the moment and the ride Misato needed had gone on its way. Kensuke next had the difficult task of calming Asisaka down, not more then an hour before, they were talking about him. Those critical few minutes past, their resolve was to go to the hospital. Kensuke needed a life too and the next call had gone to Kazama.

"Kazama, get your car around to pick us up… Shinji's had a big accident"

His reaction was of disbelief and it took two minutes to tell him again and again that this wasn't a joke and that it was deadly serious. After that Kazama had agreed to be on his way in five minutes. Because of his attire, the location of his parents, both were home, and the location of the car keys for the AE92, he had been about to get on the road in four minutes. Despite it being against the law, Kazama's next phone call had been to Naoko.

"Naoko, I'm coming around to pick you up, Shinji's in the hospital"

What had been repeated for several minutes in phone calls was only the relay of panic onto a new person, but now there was some order. Naoko's reaction was to first ask how he knew; Naoko realised quickly the age of the information of how important and literally dropped her school bag and her uniform for tomorrow and ran out the door. Her next phone call was to Hikari.

But for her, this is where the line had ended. Kensuke had called Hikari, who had so informed Naoko she had called Toji and both were aware of the pick up that Kazama was now going to do and Naoko had to reinform him of. The confusion was amazingly minimal to this point, with only the expectation of Kazama, everyone didn't need it repeated and the corresponding actions of everyone had kept their panic to a minimum. This had only taken twenty minutes to accomplish. By the twenty first, Kazama had already pulled up to Naoko's place and the young teenager jumped in the front seat. It was then she realised something. Despite it all, the AE92 had only 5 seats; and Asisaka would come along as she already concluded.

Around ten minutes after the call, Sousuke had pulled up by the store and he started to drive as quickly as his roads permitted towards the hospital. Misato quickly briefed him in while Riksuto was on her mobile phone doing what a doctor could do, it had taken several minutes and she had learnt in more detail the extent of Shinji's injuries. The news wasn't positive to say the leave about the news she had already known.

The mecha gamers store was the last stop, it being the closest to the hospital. Kensuke and Asisaka did an exceptional job closing the store as fast as possible and getting ready to face this tragic event. It only took a few minutes, but Kazama sped off again, Asisaka left with the only option of squeezing in between Hikari and Kensuke. At this point Hikari was loosing control in her need for information. That resolve would only come as long as Kazama drove fast enough to the hospital.

* * *

Riksuto was now the most in control, followed by Sousuke and Misato. Everyone else after a few minutes, Riksuto was back in a doctor's robe and they followed her. In the ER ward, it was unusually quiet, but three doctors were waiting at the central nurse's station for this ward for the head of the department to take action. Instinctively and correctly assuming, one of them handed a clip board with the present condition. Misato and Sousuke were out of place and after a direction indicator from Riksuto; Sousuke went to the waiting room, unaware that she didn't follow her.

"Riksuto…" Misato said her voice weak from the last hour of worry and stress "how bad is it going to be?"

"I don't know yet" Riksuto said

"Is he going to make it?" Misato had to ask,

"He's not going to if I stand here…" Riksuto snapped back before reproaching herself for that flippant remark "Misato… go wait… ill update you as soon as I can"

With that, Riksuto turned around and walked hurriedly towards the double doors and disappeared just like that. Sousuke returned to find her.

"Misato…" Sousuke said "come on, she is here"

Who that was Misato didn't have to guess; Misato turned and walked down the corridor towards the waiting room where everyone found her. In the second row, on her own in the middle, Rei was sitting here pail like a ghost and it almost looked strange as her expression was of emptiness. It took Misato awhile to notice it, but it was actually quite obvious; but her uniform she hadn't changed before the practice session, was almost completely covered in blood. There were no signs of injuries and cuts, but her skirt and her scarf were soaked. What came to her surprised a second later that Rei hadn't even noticed her yet?

"Rei!"

"Misato-san…" Rei said softly "you're here…"

"What happened…?" Misato said on reflex, how hard it was to say it she did anyway.

"Shinji…he got into an accident… it was not his fault… he clashed into the guardrail… at a steep angle…" Rei was almost babbling; her eyes now were widened with a fright she experienced only a handful of times before. Misato saw it there that Rei was collapsing before her, it was like the emotionless girl had finally sprung to life and her feelings were welcomed with the most horrific reasons. Misato could help it anymore, she grabbed Rei and held her tightly in a hug, it felt strange, Rei was cold as ice, and the wet spongy texture of her blood soaked clothes only told Misato that she was only beginning to understand what had just happened. The tremors of Rei's body told her much, too much that this accident was not one she would soon forget.

"It's alright" Misato said, barely holding her own "I'm here now, Riksuto is in the ward, and everyone will be here in awhile"

"Shinji… his car…"

"What happened exactly?" Misato said, seeing that Sousuke was just as curious to know,

"He was practicing… I was just following him… like he told me to over the walkie talkie you gave us….he said I was doing great and he said he hoped the video mounted in my car was getting it… then it happened so quickly…" Rei started to loose it again but Misato shook her out of it.

"What happened to the car?" Sousuke said "how bad?"

"He crashed head into a guardrail… he spun around once and hit the guard raid again... it broke through and hit the grave… I caught up and stopped, I raced out… I couldn't reach him… the drive side door was jammed… there wasn't a fire…I got the passenger door open… he was hunched over the steering wheel… the windshield glass was everywhere… his chest…" Rei stopped again

"What happened to Shinji?" Misato again almost yelled,

"He was not dead, I could hear him breathing….it was very rapid breathing…" Rei continued, trying to get it out, but her throat was clogging up and her words were harder to say "I got him out of his seat and… I pulled him out of the car…he was alive, but he wasn't conscious… I brushed the glass off him…I carried him on my back up to the FC"

Sousuke noted that and took a look at Rei's back, and surely enough it was completely covered in the deep red blood. She had to have felt it, the blood on her back from his body. She must've done it to try stopping the bleeding.

"Then I went… to here…" Rei said "I drove as fast as I could…when I got here I called for help and a paramedic came…took Shinji away on a stretcher into there" Rei gestured to the ER ward entrance "after a few minutes, they told me to sit here… someone parked my car and asked if I wanted to call someone… I called you"

Misato's emotions were all over the place and it was Sousuke who held it together, Misato kept Rei in her arms, a hand over her head pushing the younger girl's head in her upper chest. The hospital chairs didn't offer a level of comfort, just a certain convince that there were easy to clean and easy to stack. So she was stuck to just sitting next to Rei doing the best she could to comfort her. The silence was short lasting; the entrance to the waiting room was rammed open by five teenagers. Just as concerned, but not yet aware of the serious nature of the situation. All of them instantly asked questions until they realised that nothing would be accomplished like this.

"Rei, What Happened to you!" Naoko was the first to notice the blood on her back

"It's okay..." Misato said not having anything better to say, "Rei wasn't injured"

"Then Shinji…" Hikari trailed off,

"I don't know anything" Misato replied, explaining all she could with what little she knew already "but Riksuto is taking care of the matter now… She said she will take care of it"

Kensuke and Kazama only had to look at the stains on the back of Rei's back, if it had not from her, then… it was not a condition that any of the five who just entered where expecting. It was far worse, it was tragic, and it was clear to all of them. Shinji would probably not live.

"How bad?" Kensuke asked after what had felt like a minute

"Rei said that the car went directly into the guardrail, spun around and then crashed off the road and into some bushes" Sousuke said bluntly, not liking one word of it,

Kensuke imagined the condition of the car now, its front would be a wreck, anything forward of the drivers seat would be a compete wreck. And now it was left there, on the roads.

"I suppose we will have to wait"

And everyone did that for an hour, nothing. Over that period of time, the teenagers rang home to say that they would be out for awhile, explaining in detail the situation, in the case of Toji and Kensuke, saying that yes, it was Shinji, and yes, Rei was with him, and yes, it was serious. The hour was supplemented by no other activity besides Kazama wondering off to the venting machines he saw on the way in to buy a can of coke and some chocolate bars Naoko had asked for, he came back grumbling about the ridiculous price of things here, but he didn't voice them to anyone. The television news was a distraction for half an hour and it did help with everyone's minds.

The world it seemed was quiet, almost so actually, there was more news about that South American civil war Argentina and Brazil were having over some costal land and some islands now. The United Nations said they would deploy _over the rainbow _and a dozen vessels to try settle things down a bit before it became serious.

Apart from that, local news was a drag; the government ministry was investigating a possible tax fraud scandal in the department of education… again. Misato briefly wondered what was so sexy about committing tax fraud in there. Her thought was short lived when the door to the ER flung open again, it was Riksuto.

"Riksuto!" Misato jumped to her feet "is he alright? Is he going to make it?"

Riksuto's face didn't change a bit. Misato's hopes died with that,

"I'm going to assist with the surgery for now, Shinji's condition is critical… left lung was punctured, his rib cage collapsed, both arms broken, he lost a lot of blood, but we manage to stabilize that with supply" Riksuto said, looking to Rei with some sort of confidence "Shinji is lucky he got here at all"

"Riksuto… please… don't let him go" Misato hugged her once again friend,

"It's going to be awhile" Riksuto spoke, patting Misato on the back. Then her confidence improved "But I won't let your son die on my watch"

"Thank you…"

"for now… you can use my office to stay… its going to be awhile before I know anything" Riksuto turned to the nurse who was waiting by the door "Nurse, I need you to take these people to my office, they can stay there for the moment"

The nurse, who evidently was Riksuto's assistant, nodded concerning and understandingly; the situation had no other mood appropriate for the moment. Several minutes later, all 8 of them were in Dr Riksuto Akagi's strangely spacious office. Misato took the new high back seat that Riksuto must've recently acquired. The teenagers and Rei found the couch and sat there, waiting. Sosuske took on of the chairs in front of the desk usually for visitors like himself. He looked up at the qualifications on the wall. Riksuto seemed to be very qualified for just a MD; her bioengineering doctorate was the one that he found strangest however.

* * *

Silence, with only the tic of a clock on Riksuto's desk and the sky darkening behind the window with its curtains that had been drawn counting for everyone the time passing. Nothing was still anything, but the thoughts of what happened were still engrained in everyone's heads that it took another 15 minutes more before Kensuke's mind sparked the question that had to be asked

"Why" he spoke the simple word, everyone looked at him like had just broken a china vase.

"What caused him to spin out…?" Kensuke said "Rei… did you know why he spun out?"

"Yes" Rei said, now more composed with her sitting in the other visitor's chair. Everyone instantly became focused on the question, and its answer and its meaning that would evolve from that.

"Shinji… was being pushed"

"Pushed… by whom"

"I don't know… but it was the same car which attacked us before, it was light enough in the day…"

"Rei" Sousuke said, interrupting, noticing how strained Rei felt taking about it, he also had a brain spark "you said before you had a walkie talkie and a video camera"

Misato and everyone turned to Sousuke, Rei answered for everyone.

"Yes, to record my progress now that I was in the car myself, Riksuto wanted a record of my progress" Rei explained, actually feeling a little lighter now "the walkie talkies were Shinji's idea, he wanted to communicate with me during runs"

"Kensuke" Misato stood up and spoke with some degree of authority in her voice, not really noticing it "can you go to the FC and get that video camera?"

"Sure, but if the thing ran continuous since the start of practice, the batteries will be dead by now" Kazama said

"What sort of camera is it?" Kensuke said "it is like mine?"

"Yes it is" Misato said, "same brand I mean"

"Then I think I can power it up, and I can use my laptop to upload the video, I have all the cables and stuff in my laptop bag, I left it in Kazama's car.

"You two, go retrieve that stuff" Misato said, "Rei can you let Kensuke borrow the FC's keys for a second?"

"Understood" Rei nodded and fished in her pocket for the 2 keys and simple keychain for the Mazda outside. The two young men walked out and Misato sat back down. Just as they left, the assistant from before walked into the office.

"Misato?" the nurse said "do you or anyone want something to drink? Something to eat?"

Misato looked around to everyone; they had missed dinner in their respective homes, so she supposed a light meal would be a good idea right about now. But nobody seemed to react to the secretary's call. Misato decided she would try breaking the ice. She asked for sandwiches and something to drink, to which everyone asked for the same or sushi bento boxes if any were sold in the shop downstairs. The secretary nodded and made her departure, leaving everyone again silent waiting for news on Shinji. It wasn't very long after that small interruption that Kensuke and Kazama returned, the former cradling a video camera and walkie talkie and looking as pale as a ghost, the latter was only surprised at the look at his colleague.

"You alright Kensuke?" Misato asked,

"I'm alright…" he said "but the interior of the car…"

"Its Shinji's blood" Rei said, now feeling a lot calmer now she had a hour or two to consider it, her assurances that she did the right thing taking Shinji here had taken over her worry, "when I was racing to here, one of the glass fragments hell out and it started a pressured bleed"

"It's all over that side of the windshield… the dashboard… and the seat is soaked in it…"

"Rei, didn't you do anything?"

"Yes, I stopped for a moment and I found a towel in the back to tie a makeshift bandage with… it was effective that it didn't spray, and after I used another towel to wipe the windows, I put pressure on it and the bleed was contained, I was glad he wore a belt"

Asisaka cringed at description of her friend in such a position, more then ever she was glad that Rei had managed a rescue and while her first aid methods were crude and almost pointless, it did get Shinji to the hospital alive. Misato took it all in, her mind now desensitized to the story. Sousuke was, but everyone else wasn't, Toji felt like throwing up, and took the waste paper basket and grabbed it in case he did.

"The car's a mess" Kensuke said "and the smell is just as bad"

"Ill have to get it taken to the cleaners" Misato said "I'm not going to be able to explain that one"

"Misato?" Sousuke said "how about we check the tape"

"Alright"

* * *

A few minutes later, Kensuke and Kazama had the television screen in the office working and the laptop feeding the video through, at the same time recharging the camera. Everyone huddled around the two screens since the laptop's 16 inch screen was also copying the data. The video started with the view of the ground and Shinji's horrible handy cam work, it moved about a bit but you could tell that he was in front of the FC and getting into the passenger door, a few jolts of the camera showed Rei, who was sitting in the drives seat looking at Shinji, it took a moment before Kensuke realised the volume control on his laptop was muted, a double key combination changed that

"…think it will rain before we finish?" Rei's moving lips suddenly had voice to them

"No… that's forecasted for later tonight" Shinji said, apparently aligning the camera in the seat of the passenger side seat, it wasn't set up right, but Kensuke could see that the way the camera was mounted gave Shinji a read on what Rei's current speed and tachometer readout on her dashboard. The time on the clock said the time was roughly 6:00 in the evening. It was still light for that time of day and that he supposed that helped.

"Okay, cameras mounted" Shinji said, "let's get the show started"

Shinji disappeared from the camera and slammed the passenger door shut, he walked ahead to where his 86 waiting just ahead of the parked FC. Rei didn't seem to do anything but the sound of crackle static and the odd beeping noises sounded like she was playing with something, then our from the right she attached a sort of mobile phone holder to one of the air conditioner vents in the centre and soon followed was the walkie talkie, now turned on

"Rei, its Shinji, radio working?"

"Yes, can you receive me?" Rei replied front the drivers seat, which wasn't visible on camera, she sounded calm however.

"Alright" Shinji said, punctuated with the rear lights of his Trueno lighting up "let's go"

The camera followed the car off the side of the road at that rest stop and the noises on the audio indicated the cars suddenly picked up speed and the practice had begun. For the next ten or so minutes; everyone watched in almost awe as they observed from Rei's point of view of Shinji at his racing best. Sousuke was ever vigilant, his racing mind taking over and watching details that only he only could notice. He started to understand that Shinji was pretty good and it showed much that he had improved since his race with the White Sileighty almost a month ago.

Rei was not doing badly either, her steering control was shaky, and her acceleration control was surprisingly good. Sousuke was glad the camera could show the speed and tachometer, though he had enough sound and visual references not to need them. Twelve minuets past by Sosuske's watch. The video's quality was amazing, the radio chatter wasn't very lively, very now and then Shinji was checking with Rei, or quickly reminding her to check her break entry on a certain corner.

The speed was impressive though, Shinji and Rei were almost racing despite the fact that Rei was clearly not making any attempt to break in front of Shinji. After all of that, both the FC and the 86 entered the main straightway at the half point, Sousuke didn't see it until it actually passed, too engrossed was he in listing to Shinji speak properly instead of small corrections,

"That was very good Rei" Shinji said over the walkie talkie "you've corning on the high speed corners has really improved this week" by the time Shinji finished, Sousuke noticed the black thing blur past the left side of the camera.

"Wait" Sousuke said "go back 10 or so seconds and pause"

Kensuke did and rewound the file back 12 seconds, and played it again, everyone heard Shinji speak again, but Sousuke said stop about halfway through it. It was on the left side of the road, after he got Kensuke to go back a few frames, he could see it, no longer obscured by the pole in the line of sight. It was a wheel sticking out of a bush, and the body of the car was black, large looking. And other x.25 speed review of it showed more importantly the wheel was spinning. It was too short a time, but Sousuke was satisfied.

"Who is that?" Misato said, asking the question for everyone, they hit play and the video continued,

"…has really improved this week" Shinji repeated on the tape for the sixth time,

"I'm still only copying your corning though" Rei said on the tape as well, her voice sounding somehow ashen at admitting she wasn't as good as Shinji thought"

"What's important is you need to remember how you take those corners" Shinji said, "your doing fine, its okay to copy off me, but you have to improve that to suit your own style and the car you're in"

"Alright" Rei said, but then there was a bright flash in the rear view mirror, a second or two before Rei continued to speak "Shinji, you hear me?"

"Yeah…" Shinji replied "something the matter back there?"

"There is a car behind me" Rei said simply "he has his high beams on I think"

A moment or two past before Shinji replied "Rei, you want to move over to the right side for a second, I'll take a look"

"Bad move…" Sousuke said instantly to the screen. Misato and everyone agreed.

"I have the sandwiches and the sushi" the assistant said on her return to the office "what is this?"

"We don't know quiet yet…" Kensuke said, retrieving the basket of food from the lady. The nurse decided to watch it, even if it looked like the video was already half over. The camera on the car suddenly jerked to the left of road, dictating the motions of the driver and her car. A second later the sound of another car revving up became louder still and the headlights brighter in the left side mirror; eventually the car was visible in the mirror the light having past the scope of the mirror.

"Shinji, the car is overtaking me!" Rei said, in a panic

"Shit…" Shinji replied "Rei, slow down and let him pass, we're about to enter the corner"

On command the car instantly slowed a touch and the car on the left suddenly jolted on the screen and was in front of Rei in no time. The FC started to speed up again and started to follow the black car with 20 metres distant. Everyone saw it at once the identity of the car, the number plate, the 4 red brakes lights and the GT-R label on the back.

"Ryosuke…" everyone but the nurse murmured,

"Shinji?" Rei spoke over the radio

"I know who it is" the reply came "be careful, he's just trying to harass us"

At once the corner came up and the battle of sorts began at once, Shinji instantly turned in the style best adapted for his car, while the GT-R with its better traction went to full burners and raced after the Trueno, Rei's FC broke to a distance of 30 metres, but Rei then started to catch up,

"Rei, don't fall too far behind, stay on his tail" Shinji said "don't loose us out of your sights"

"I've got it" Rei said,

The battle was pretty intense already, all three cars doing full battle and doing their best to keep the corners as tight as possible. What Sousuke found amazing was that Rei was keeping up, and closing on the GT-R. This was also the first real good look at Ryosuke's driving technique and it was just as Takashi and Touya described. His braking was muddled up, which made Rei correspond to Ryosuke's breaking, but the exiting acceleration was faster the Trueno and the FC was catching up merely because she was following almost the same line.

"This guy is pretty poor in technique, his braking is shotty, but he makes that up with the acceleration" Sousuke noted. He continued to watch as they came to a wider corner. He then saw it. Ryosuke entered a power slide Drift around the corner, even though it was a high speed corner, he still drifted, widely, his braking control was terrible and it left a wide gap for a car to overtake there. Shinji was drifting, but he was tighter to the curve and his 4 wheels were managing well. But it was impossible for the 86 at full power to break any distant from the GT-R at the exit.

Shinji's engine just didn't have the horsepower to burn for it. It was an even fight however, and the FC was barely 10 metres behind the GT-R, Sosuske was almost certain that the FC had the chance to overtake this guy. It was coming clear to everyone in the room that Rei indeed had the skills almost like Shinji, and her car was powerful enough to keep up, and she wasn't even using all the power. Kensuke, Kazama and Sosuske all knew the RX-7's 13B turbo engine was able to level this black monster in power, it being a downhill run made it easier. Shinji was however struggling with his might to outrun the car that was clearly pushing hard on his back,

"Damn it!" the voice on the tape yelled, it was Shinji "if you want to declare a race, why don't you just play by the god damn rules and just say so!!!"

But then it happened, at the wide S-curve hairpins Shinji again turned in the corner and drifted close, this corner required Shinji to make an inertia drift which he wasn't completely able to do yet, he always lost out on the second corner here and, but he was getting better at it. Rei entered the drift and could see Shinji, the GT-R on his tail taking a wider turn, but suddenly, he stopped braking, and he almost lurched forward, slowly, everyone saw it, they hoped it wasn't, they prayed this wasn't it, but the past wasn't something a person hoped for, Rei's camera had it, to left but her view of it was almost centred on the whole event.

The GT-R Slammed the back right corner of the Black Trueno as fast and power as he could, the centre of the black R34 and right light on the car impacted and then did a quick break for a second before powering its acceleration to miss the Trueno when it did its spin. Rei's camera was shaking a bit but it was almost tracing the car as she exited the corner and there in front of everyone they saw it. The Trueno impacted the very end of the retainment wall at almost 90km/h, slamming at an 80 degree angle on the drivers' side, the front of the car almost looked like it crumbled as it hit. Like a spring, it then pushed back out onto the road, actually surprising the GT-R's driver who suddenly hit the brakes and let the car swing around, now going backwards. It did so for two three seconds, completely spinning around and then again smashing, this time into a guardrail and disappearing suddenly into the bushes. The GT-R had accelerated and broke its distance from the FC, which was suddenly braking.

"Shinji!" everyone could hear the panicked voice of the girl in the car, they had heard the crackled and scream inside Shinji's car of the impact, it was a horrific noise, the worse being Shinji's scream. The agonizing cry of pain lasted only 5 seconds before it went silent again. The camera paused movement as the FC did, it pointed to the hole that was opened into the bushes, amazed by many, they could see the car, barely, the shrubs were in the way again, the ones he didn't run over at least. There was now only static from the radio, Shinji's radio was likely destroyed by now.

They heard the door open, the jolt of someone moving out of the car, and then they saw Rei racing out from the right side of the screen towards the car. Misato noticed it but Rei as she was hugging Rei like she had been for the last five minutes, her skin became ice cold.

"Stop the tape Kensuke" Misato said "we've all seen enough"

Kensuke closed the media player and the noises of the air conditioner were left as the only noises in the room, along with the ticking of the clock on the desk. It took a minute, but then they heard the light patter of things hitting the window. Misato concluded without a doubt, the rain that was predicted, even in that video had just started to fall.

"Oh my…" the assistant by the door said "is that what happened to…"

"Yes…" Misato said for everyone in the group, "I'm sorry, but can you please find out where Riksuto is?"

"I'm sorry, but Riksuto said she had surgery to complete, do you want me to pass a message?"

"yes" Misato sighed deeply, it was now or later, she hoped never, but that option just died as she saw recorded on a television screen "tell her…I'm going to tell them the truth…"

"I don't understand" assistant said "what does that…"

"She'll understand what that means"

"I understand Ms Katsuragi" the assistant made her way out the room/

"What does it mean?" Naoko said.

Misato paused before replying, "It means you finally get find out what Shinji's big secret is"

* * *

Misato said that everyone should at least have something to eat, in that time she had also gotten Kensuke, Hikari and Toji to call home and say that they had to be picked up in an hour. They say on the couch, looking down at the floor, while, Misato, with Rei, alone faced Naoko, Kazama, Asisaka and Sosuske.

"Even thought it might not matter in a week or so" Misato said, "what I'm going to say is secret enough that still a little worried about telling you"

"Go ahead" Kazama said "its not he's mafia right?"

Misato frowned and glared at Kazama, the glare alone said this was no joke. He remained silent. Misato had been thinking about the way he was going to do this, for over two years she had been thinking about how she would have to tell someone this, why it was a secret… she had thought about it for so long and now the planned words were hardest she ever had to say. Knowing clear well about the assignment Asisaka, Naoko and Kazama had to have done; she decided it was best to say it like they had been taught it.

"Shinji is the third child"

The room was silent again, the clock, and the rain the loudest noises again as Misato dropped her head when she saw the looks on the four faces of the people in the two sitting chairs, the lights had been dimmed on purpose because she didn't want them to see her, but the weren't so dark that they couldn't see her hope, her delusions of secrecy, her prays this day would never come end in five words.

Sousuke was the most surprised, Asisaka, Naoko were equally in the same amount of stark terror, and Kazama had the look of disbelieving horror.

"That's impossible" Sousuke said first "he was a…"

"Evangelion pilot?" Rei interrupted the young mechanic, the four eyes as well as Misato looked to her, actually surprised at the remark and the timing of it by her, "he was such a person… Shinji Ikari… third child of Project E… designated pilot of Evangelion unit one" Rei continued her monotone explanation, justly giving it the right tone of the moment, no other mood or emotion was correct for this "the longest serving pilot in the entire war… having fought in all but one attack…"

"How do you…Rei…" Naoko spluttered after half a minute "how do you…"

"Because I'm the first child" Rei said with her answer came, remorseless, almost not caring anymore, "I am Rei Ayanami… first child of Project E…designated pilot of the prototype evangelion: unit zero"

"But that's not possible…" Sousuke jumped to his feet "Unit Zero was destroyed… the pilot was killed!"

"Both are true" Rei said "I did truly die"

Sousuke and the rest all felt it unreal, too unreal, they had promised not to talk and all of a sudden this was what being said… it was not natural… Rei was not acting natural. He remained calm forever and sat down. Asisaka looked like she was rejecting eating anything today, Naoko was wide eyed,

"Then how… how is it possible that you're alive"

"Certain circumstances at the time permitted it..." Rei said simply

Misato decided that it was her baton again and she had to take over "the commander, Gendo… had the science department… build a device… it was a medical farm bank of sorts…those sort of machines usually store bacteria in cryogenic water"

"What did this one store?" Sousuke said, afraid of the answer already, knowing he would hear it, wishing Asisaka wasn't in the room now.

"According to my memory…" Misato said, in a low and utterly hopeless voice "when I discovered it, there 57 clones of Rei… I'm guessing that they had 59 to begin with"

So far, Misato wasn't surprised none had attacked her, if they were going to however, this was it, this was the scary part… it still frightened Misato to this day the time she and Shinji were escorted at gunpoint into the chamber… the light flicked and the dozens of bodies… and Riksuto harmlessly carrying out her mission by SEELE and laying waste to it. All of it done in front of Shinji; in Riksuto's final act of lunacy at the time to make him see the extent of Gendo's own mental depravity.

"59?!" Naoko said? "You mean 2 Rei's had been used up already?" she was thinking Rei as a thing now. A bad thing to get your mind into doing,

"I'm the third incarnation" Rei started "my previous incarnation… died during the angel attack when the ejection capsule fired and landed hard"

"You knew all of this?!!" Kazama said, now afraid of being even near her

"I do now… at the time my conscious thoughts of my own history would not cover that… it was only until much later that it was explained to me… in its complete details

Misato felt that explaining it was dragging it out and not getting it done, but she had to explain this or there would be after affects to all of this that Rei wouldn't benefit from. Misato started to explain,

"Gendo…always wanted a daughter… I don't know why… I don't know what for" Misato said "however his wife had born a son, because of her work in NERV; she didn't want to take time off to have another one. When his wife died during an accident… he took a DNA of her and used a damaged angel egg embryo, from that he cloned Rei while she was in the first 2 weeks of conception" Misato repeated word for word what Riksuto had once told her "After that the bodies were grown in artificial wombs… until she was born, they picked one and went with her. The others were left in the chamber in a state of cryogenic freeze… I don't know the technical details, but they grow at the same rate as the living Rei"

"Dear god in heaven…" Kazama said "you mean if Rei died, there was simply another one to replace her?! What about her memories, what about her brain… she wouldn't remember anything would she?"

"As I said" Misato said "Gendo was very protective of Rei… too much… I even have speculations to some of things he did to Rei"

"Go on…" Sousuke could see how psychically sick Misato was becoming "Rei's memories were 'copied' every week of her life… they were entered into something called the dummy plug" she continued, slowly "it's like saving your game per say… Rei wouldn't know anything between the previous update and her death"

"And Gendo wouldn't have lost her" Sousuke said

"Such a system no longer exists" Rei said "Misato and Shinji witnessed as it was destroyed by the then head of the science department. Riksuto Akagi"

'So Riksuto is also apart of this' Sousuke said before realising something "hang on… you just said that Gendo had a son"

"Yes"

"Gendo Ikari, commander of NERV, later convinced of war crimes, seen as the most brutal person so far this century"

"Yes"

"I have a feeling" Sousuke said "that this is Shinji's other secret, if there is one"

Misato said nothing for several minutes, nothing could be said, because nothing was the only thing she could think, she didn't expect that to be blown. But Misato decided that she'll have to anyway later on if she didn't now.

"Gendo Ikari… is the biological father to Shinji Ikari" Misato said, "He abandoned Shinji at age 4 in favour of Rei, whom was merely the artificial clone of his dead wife"

"In this sense" Rei said "it also makes me Shinji's sister, technically my DNA was altered by the cloning process, I'm only 38.56 his mother, my DNA however would make me his sibling as its still within the family DNA structure of the Ikari family"

"I need to sit down" Sousuke finally said "this is too much" he sat down again, his younger sister standing up, her mind as confused, frightened and felt in a continuous state of shock. The stories, the truth… it was too much to really expect, and it was right in front of her. There was no way this was being faked, Misato clearly didn't feel well anymore and she looked like she was going to convulse.

"That's basically it" Misato said, her head facing the floor "the rest of us are merely attachments to Shinji and Rei…"

"I can't believe it…" Naoko said, speaking for everyone

"It's true" Toji said, everyone turning around; at some point during the conversation, he'd gotten up and was leaning against the door, probably worried that the assistant or some passer-by would eavesdrop and make matters worse.

"Why, who are you really?!" Kazama said with an enraged anger

"He is the fourth child" Rei said behind Kazama, making the man almost jump out of the skin, "Toji Suzahara, was the designated pilot of Evangelion unit three, on its only sortie…"

"Didn't that Evangelion turn into an angel?" Naoko slowly turned around? "You mean Shinji attacked you… I remember it from class, unit 1 had to attack unit 3! They said you died!"

"No…" Toji said "and don't you ever dare say Shinji did that on purpose…that bastard dad of his took auto pilot control and bashed me and crushed my entry plug… that's how I really lost my limbs by the way if you don't believe me"

Naoko was chilled on that revelation, she had heard so much about people who were unfortunately killed when a foot or hand was misplaced in battle on a building or that one time an Evangelion unit crushed a bomb shelter and its 2000 people inside. But never had she heard of this lone story about someone living from it.

"What about you two" Naoko asked "where you Eva pilots?"

"They weren't" Misato said bringing the conversation back to her control "they're just were associated with the pilots… but Hikari and Kensuke would've become pilots if an Evangelion pilot died, Kensuke was slotted to replace Shinji, Hikari for Toji if his Evangelion had survived. We had a replacement pilot for the second child, but he ended up being the last angel"

"Then what about you Misato?" Sousuke said "who are you really? We know why Riksuto is, we know who everyone else is, but who are you"

"For the entire angel war… I was the head of the operations department, my tasking was plan tactics and to control the evangelions and their pilots" Misato said quietly, but loud enough so everyone heard eventually, "and that's it… that's all of us… that's out little secret"

The room was silent for five minutes, the rage or fear in all four of the newly adjoined members of people who knew the real identity of the other five people in the room. Misato hated it, he could feel the disbelief, the shock, this part was over, but she had to say it anyway.

"When Shinji and myself moved here 2 years ago, we were lucky to slip away unnoticed… nobody cared actually that we left" Misato said "but we decided that, for our own sakes, it would never be brought up again, that nobody should learn of it… the reasons are evident in your present feelings to me now"

"It's hard to just accept you realise" Sousuke said "but it's just something…"

"I don't expect you to trust me anymore Sousuke" Misato said it finally "even though I had a pact with Shinji never to tell, I lied to you… both to protect you and to prevent ourselves from being discovered"

"And this is why this thing with Ryosuke is so important?"

"Yes" Misato said "if Shinji backs out of a challenge, or looses to him… Ryosuke tells the world that we are here and it's all over"

Sousuke looked around the rooms, and saw it on everyone now; they're head were down, except for Rei who probably didn't think to do so, but her eyes told everyone that she was just as ashamed that it was over. Her life that is, was over, her cover blown, her freedom vanishing before her eyes.

"Shinji..." Misato started "said he would challenge him no matter what… this secret is that important to him… he doesn't want to have his secret surface and his life turned upside down again… and you saw how far he will take it… he wants to die before that"

"And with Shinji now in hospital…" Naoko started, but Kazama finished "Ryosuke-sensei can just go ahead and tell cant he?"

"That's why I told you now" Misato said "as I said at the beginning, now or later, you were going to find out… but I preferred you heard it from us… I suppose owe it to all of you that we at least do that"

Nobody in the room spoke, or uttered a single breath. The rain outside was heavier now, the clock now drowned out by the ambient noise on the other side of the window. Nobody could speak, nobody could think of another word to say now. Sousuke was just annoyed, Misato was just a cunning as he originally saw her, but she didn't think there was this much too it, but the NERV operations department commander? Those sorts of things were never jokes. It started to explain a lot of other minor things, her confidence in Shinji and Rei for example; she knew what they were like at their limits, and a mere downhill battle was child's play against a for-real tactical contest with a alien species as he thought of the angels.

Naoko was the most annoyed and infuriated of the group. No rumours had ever surfaced, nothing, no warning, no precedent, and Shinji's assurance that she'd tell her one day… be told this? She had long despised the Evangelion program, despite the reason for it. But now she was in a complex state of problems. She and Kazama had both came to know of Shinji as a normal person, and she still found it hard to believe that the cold hearted, steel fisted, angry monster that piloted the Evangelion unit was Shinji, whom was as far from that description as possible. Could she look at him the same after this? And the time with Rei; a zombie… it made perfect sense now, no emotions, no feelings… why have them if she can be immortal?

Kazama had a more sensible approach and thought about it more, Shinji had obviously not wanted to tell anyone, and he was right not too. But that made it impossible for Shinji to be normal in front of everyone. Didn't he keep his driving a secret from everyone before? Didn't just show how eager he was not to let this story slip. And how could he see Shinji as a liar when the choices he had were so limited, that either way he'd loose. 'No' Kazama thought to himself. Shinji did do the right thing; he couldn't tell anyone, there would've been no way for him to for a start, this incident just demanded he did now.

Asisaka was not the least afraid of the truth, as surprising as it was, but her shock was more absorbed the by confirmation Rei had explained to her as clearly as a white sheet of paper. Not four hours previous Kensuke explained the status quo with Shinji and Rei; only to get it confirmed by the girl herself. The details about Shinji and Rei's past were the frightening part, their implications, the reasons why Shinji didn't talk about his past a lot, the reasons why he never had ordained trust in anyone expect a handful with taking care of Rei

But Asisaka could see both sides of this coin, on the other side she saw what Misato and everyone else thought. There was no resolve to this; they were only doing this because they're almost certain duty was to tell everyone present the truth now. Asisaka thought about it for a prolonged period and decided that this was unfair; what had they really done? Misato, Shinji, Rei and apparently Toji were related strongly to the Evangelion project, but did their behaviour reflect it? Asisaka certainly knew she couldn't dare bring it against Shinji anymore then she would against Rei's strange 'past'.

So why was everyone so angry? Naoko and Kazama had their reasons, so did her older brother, but what was really the problem here, they told the truth, it wasn't something everyone liked to do, but they did it. Asisaka was battling her own mind right now, battling to find a common reason to not hate Shinji, but the further she looked, the more confused she became. Eventually, her mind decided that if there was no reason for it… then,

"I understand" her words spoke, brining the complete attention and full focus of her brother, her friends and the others arrayed around her "I can't find a reason for it, but I still trust you Misato-san… and I hope Shinji is okay too…"

"Asisaka…" Sousuke said, but before he could do anything, the door behind them opened again, It wasn't the secretary, but it was the doctor herself again, everyone's momentary shock was unbalanced again as they all turned to the person who had just interrupted this confession.

"Riksuto!" Misato said, jumping out of her chair, walking around the table and approaching her "What's going on?"

The pause was required, but Riksuto eventually spoke "Shinji is going to live"

Misato jumped for joy and hugged the doctor in front of her with tears in her eyes again, her 'thank you' repeated faster then one could comprehend. Riksuto patted her and waited until she had clamed down to disconnected herself from the woman.

"Shinji is still in critical condition… his body hasn't been in this sort of condition ever before, but he's in a coma still, but stable now'" Riksuto said, taking a seat, waiting a minute to take a good look at everyone's faces, "I'm guessing you've already explain it to them Misato"

"Sorry Riksuto…" Misato said "it was time they knew anyway"

"I cannot blame you for distrusting us for now on then" Riksuto said sitting in her office chair "but I will not accept you treating Shinji or anyone else differently…"

"What do you mean?" Naoko said "they are evangelion pilots!"

"_Were _Evangelion pilots" Riksuto said "and besides which, Shinji never wanted to pilot"

Naoko and Kazama stood still, Asisaka the only one so far converting her feelings. Sousuke was just as confused but he wanted to remain level headed.

"Shinji moved here to get away from it, he got away from it, and now Ryosuke wants to deny Shinji his freedom by dropping this burden back on him" Riksuto explained "the only reason why Ryosuke could possibly do this for fame, he would be known as the guy who discovered out location"

Sousuke decided that despite the information he now knew, he still had to respect the two adults here and now even more since he had a clear understanding of their roles. But he needed to think about this more, a night's sleep would merit that. But before he decided to leave, he had to ask the question,

"What now then?" Sousuke said, "I need time to think this over… but I need to know"

"We don't know yet" Riksuto sighed "now we have come to that, all I can say is that we just have to wait it out… depending when Ryosuke does it I suppose"

"Isn't there some other way?!" Naoko said, now starting to realise the actual reason for being told,

"What way is that?" Misato said "Ryosuke's conditions were clear, Shinji's 86 and only Shinji's 86"

"Both the 86 and Shinji are no longer able to compete; Ryosuke has technically won by default" Riksuto said, ending the conversation. The room returned to its silence again, now four new minds turned on that thought, but each of them had started to add it all up to the information they had to this point. Sosuske applied the challenge in his head, in everyway, forcing a challenge down someone's throat was against the code, but with he now had seen the whole picture, there was very little of the code or of moral ethics in this. Ryosuke was just going to force it with blackmail, and he knew he would win anyway.

"The only real conscious factor" Asisaka said finally is "how come Ryosuke never just said it openly already… he has been here long enough that he could have by now"

"We've considered that one" Riksuto said "we conclude that Ryosuke is sticking to his agreement in which he won't tell until the race ends, or Shinji forfeits"

But then there was a stock of thought in the mind of the girl by the wall, not having said much expect when told, Rei decided that it was time to make her move.

"We still owe Shinji… even for trying this much" Rei said, "All of us shouldn't have to rely on him to pull this off"

"What do you mean Rei?" Misato asked,

"Shinji isn't trying to save his own life here; he's trying to keep all of us undercover isn't he?"

"That's right" Riksuto said "again…"

"So why haven't we tried to do anything?" Rei spoke louder, her emotions suddenly flaring up in a sign of distress

"What are you implying?" Sousuke said

"I'm going to challenge Ryosuke" she said simply, the room was silent for a moment,

"Are you crazy?!" Naoko said instantly "after what happened to Shinji?"

"Naoko…" Rei said "Shinji has done all he could to help me, help all of us… but he didn't ask for help with this dilemma"

"So how does racing help?" Naoko shot back

"I can't stand here and not let Shinji's efforts fall to the side, we have to continue on for him"

And with that, everyone knew now what Rei meant, Misato and Riksuto both looked at each other for answers. Not finding any, they couldn't object to Rei now. But everyone else was harder to convince.

"Rei… how are you going to convince him to race you?"

"Ill find a way… right Misato?" she turned to it, "I can do it"

Misato was confused and she needed help now, what Rei was proposing was simple, but was it a vain attempt to recover their chances and return to the status quo of a few hours ago? Riksuto's face was actually smiling however, and she was about to ask why when Sousuke said something,

"It might actually work"

"What do you mean?" Misato said

"Rei's car has enough power to make up the power gap with the GT-R, and from what I saw of the video, Rei can definitely drive fast enough, I don't have the details exactly, I have to watch the video a few more times. But…" Sousuke said "Misato, if you like this idea, then we can do it"

Everyone around them were suddenly interested, Kensuke and Kazama looked at each other and both asked the other about the problems involved, but they both saw the video and decided that it was indeed possible, Rei had stuck to the tail of that GT-R, and there was more then enough evidence that she could defeat him. The room's mood was changing quickly into the one of distrust and confused anger into one of enlightenment.

"Rei… are you sure about this?" Asisaka said finally, speaking the question, she had to know for herself if what Kensuke said, all about that loyalty that Rei had for Shinji or whatever it was, but Rei was displaying those emotions now and she had to know.

"I cannot leave Shinji to fight this alone" Rei said, "even if I loose, I cannot be his friend and not try"

* * *

A/N: well there you have it, 3 chapters in 6 days. And I suppose the most difficult ones to write, this chapter I really worry about because of how the whole disclose thing. How to explain it all; it's mainly and suppose to only be about Shinji and Rei. Next chapter will be interesting I suppose. Please give me your thoughts about it and tell me what you think.

NigthhawkImac


	17. Episode 16: The first shots of battle

A/N advance edition: Fixed the missing bars and missing A/N notes, the save function propbably screwed up, cause I didnt notice the problem until I was going to edit my own notes.

After Evangelion

Episode 16: The first shots of battle

The classroom was cold, not in the usual sense however, despite the wet weather outside. Students went about their business as usual, ignoring the rain outside pelting down on the ground. The end of summer was finally catching up on everyone and the annual typhoon season was starting to wreck havoc on the coast of Japan, china, Korea and throughout the North West corner of the pacific. But in Hikari's mind, it was a lot colder. When she woke up this morning, she had inadvertently thought that it was all a stupid dream. Just a really weird nightmare, Shinji had been in a serious accident, and that her closest friends were now in the know now of Shinji's true identity.

That mislead assurance had only lasted the time it took her to go to the bathroom and look in the mirror. For some reason she had be racking in her mind why she was thinking of the dream over and over. Eventually, her mind had finally searched her memories of last night and it found the forgotten entries from last afternoon to the time she went to bed. It was true, it was all true, Shinji was in coma, Sosuske, Asisaka, Kazama and Naoko were all aware of Shinji's identity, they were aware of Rei's identity. More important, despite when hope was lost, Rei of all people decided to step up and speak.

She pondered about it again now; she was at her desk, gazing around at the classroom… not really doing anything. Occasionally she trained her eye on Shinji's desk, regretting each time, because it was only a self assured confirmation that it was all true. Hikari wondered for a moment if Rei would show up today, and if she did, who would Rei hang around today? As far as everyone was concerned in the classroom, Rei Ayanami was an untouchable girl. Hikari just hoped her day would go smoothly, she had seen Naoko earlier; that short conversation had confirmed that Shinji's accident had already become rumor in the hallways at school.

The class representative was only thankful that Kazama and Naoko had done their best this morning to downplay the event. Nobody was talking about it now, just that Shinji was not here; which for some reason made the whole classroom feel a lot quieter, though the classrooms in the morning are be definition, impossible to silence. But still she felt a chill in the air, and it was too warm to be from the wet weather. No she thought to herself, it was something both uncommon and too simple to think about. She hadn't talked about it with her parents yet; tonight she would, hopefully without the resulting panic that she's known Shinji and Rei to have only a few days before.

There was a simple word for it, so simple that Hikari's mind hadn't triggered it. Not since during all the angel attacks, not since that devastating afternoon she had learned of Toji's fate. Comparing the two was hard, both were on a massive scale, but yet both were similar, and both had repercussions that she couldn't fathom to imagine. All the hopes of keeping Ryosuke quiet on the subject, that's if he would even honor his word, which Hikari was starting to doubt. Hikari finally figured out the cold feeling she got, why it felt like everyone else in the room felt cold, why it felt like the life in her body had evaporated and her soul emptied of hope. It was fear. It was the possibilities of Rei both failing and Ryosuke telling, the aftermath. Until a day ago, there was a negative aura around Shinji's seat, like failure was grabbing at him, forcing him to accept fate.

'Rei is all we have left…' Hikari finally thought 'She can't possibility beat Ryosuke… Shinji couldn't... and he almost paid for it with his life… What could Rei possibly do?'

Down the hall in Asisaka's classroom, everyone was still chatting away about all variety of things; their homeroom teacher was rarely in class on time. She mainly ignored the banter, almost a month living here and she had failed to make a single friend in her own class, they were just to naïve and too everyone else she had met. Asisaka felt out of place in this classroom, she knew one of the girls from her constant visits to mecha gamers, and she had right off the bat nagged the new girl to give her discounts or something. Apart from that strange otaku girl, there were pretty of airhead of both genders. And then after a long week, she had identified and learnt who the lovesick romantic types were, they were suppose to be far and few between; but this class had four confirmed Shoujo manga love story addicts, two more that loved some pre-second impact soap operas, and the rest were crazies.

Asisaka prayed then that next April she would be put in Shinji's class. That thought stopped short of completion when she asked herself why she found Shinji so interesting, even now; for that matter, why did she still have no problems with Kensuke and the rest? She racked her mind again about the thing at the hospital last night; the confession as seemed to be. They were all in on something bigger then she had ever experienced, and it wasn't so much a shocking secret as it appeared. Why did they seem more… interesting then everyone else?

Asisaka didn't exactly know a lot of things, her upbringing wasn't exactly a cutesy childhood; two parents that argued, being left with only her brother, learning along the way many things about cars and street racing. She didn't regret her brothers care, even she admitted that there were some things that Sosuske couldn't just teach Asisaka, but he was a male role model of someone who was accomplished, who didn't look back, and took extreme care of the people and things he was associated with.

Then there was Shinji, no doubt brave… to get in an Evangelion almost every time a battle happened, he was smart, he was not hansom, but Asisaka hadn't been brought up to look for those sort of values. No, Shinji was not a coward who disrespected people. The care he took of Rei was all the evidence she had ever needed to prove that.

'Why does Shinji remind me of Onii-chan?' Asisaka her mind suddenly thought, turning over her mind to the next person. Rei was a very complex person, and the explanation she received last night was only making matters worse. What was she? A clone according to everyone in the room, and according to Rei, apparently she was Shinji's biological sister. It backed up Kensuke's analyst of things sure as hell, Shinji's behavior was now completed with blood stained fact.

But what Asisaka found surprising out of Rei last night was that it was the first time she seemed to speak on her own. Of course she had replied to questions, and talked occasionally on a variety of subjects, but she didn't really start talking, she was almost like a doll in a sense, expect this 'doll' was now vowing revenge. That fact was something Asisaka could instantly respect. Rei wasn't afraid; at least it didn't seem so. She was equal the risk that Shinji had to face now, it was only fair that she didn't leave all the problems to Shinji. She was also an Evangelion pilot, Rei also had a questionable background, but most importantly it seemed that the albino haired girl had a notable understanding and loyal bond with Shinji. It was only a strange consequence that Kenesuke and the others that knew Rei's actual background seemed to find it very odd.

'It is like me and Sosuske-niichan' Asisaka concluded. With that concluded, her original question came back to her mind. Why was it that she found Shinji interesting, even without knowing everything that she now knew? There was no actual answer to this, but she had seen it a few times, already in school, at work, and the times on the top of Mt. Akira, Shinji it seemed, or at least to her, had a serious demeanor, like Shinji was wary of his surroundings, but at the same time, he had a sense of serious respect for everyone… at least those who didn't try to annoy the young man on purpose. Along with all his friends, Kensuke was playful, but his mood could change in an instant, with relativity good control over his emotions.

She hadn't really talked to anyone else besides those two and Rei on occasion, but from their looks last night, they all shared the same outlook, the same feelings, the same experience of fear and pains. They were realistic, they didn't have misguided thoughts about life, they didn't have dreamy romantic ideas like some of her classmates often had. They were plain, simple people, but they had the same serious determination that some adults lacked. That she thought to herself was why she found them interesting over normal people her age; it wasn't because they were different, it was because they were realistic, they were imaginative when it counted and serious when they had to be.

'And they're lives are on the line now' Asisaka thought to herself, noticing that her teacher had finally showed up for class.

* * *

Misato pulled into the small parking lot that was outside the shop. She had been into the place enough times. After the morning deliveries, and a somewhat annoying visit to the school to confirm that Shinji was in hospital and 'no, he wasn't using that as an excuse', as thought someone could fake a car crash injury. After that waste of time, which included a thirty minute interview she didn't really want to do, Misato took the Mazda to Sosuske's shop, on the promise that the mechanic said he could arrange it to be cleaned out. Misato was not completely exhausted, given that completely meant she had died, but right now, her body was straining with every foot to get the rest of the day over with, ahead she could see Sosuske waiting for her. 

After some instructions from Rei, Sosuske had gone off this morning to retrieve the wreckage so to speak. When Misato looked at him, his face was one of grim hope and somewhat visible sense of reluctantly joy in the condition of the 86; then again she thought, so would any mechanic asked to completely rebuild a car, the money for that sort of work would cost mega loads. After a quick preamble abut how it was recovered, Ryosuke took her into the shop, the 86 was covered with a blanket, best not to instantly relieve to Misato the extent of the damage. That changed when Sosuske removed it.

It looked exactly like the video had described it, the entire body of the car forward of the drivers seat had simply crumpled like a beer can, the engine was a complete loose, being injected backwards into the passenger compartment, the gearbox crunched and shattered, the windshield was fragmented and smashed, with the deep red stain covering most of the drivers side now dried out. Inside it was a mess, you could tell where Rei had dragged Shinji out, the blood stains dragged across the passenger side seat and out the door, the wheel was broken off, but the entire display module of the car had been pushed into Shinji no doubt. All the panels were beaten, anything made of glass was smashed, the fabric damp with the wet of the rain, which in turn gave a greenish smell to the blood stains.

"I've seen enough" Misato said, Sosuske complied and covered the car up,

"I'm amazed that Shinji is still alive, technically this isn't someone actually survives from"

"I've heard enough of that" Misato said angrily "I've just had the principal think Shinji is faking it, it took a phone call to Riksuto to get the point across… and they still want me to come in tomorrow to talk about his grades of all things"

"Come into my office, we'll talk"

"Alright"

A few minutes later, he offered a can of warm tea to Misato and sat down; he didn't exactly know how to make that very well to his misfortunate"

"The situation isn't as bad as it looks" Sosuske said,

"Then explain Shinji in hospital!" Misato cracked open her can, "that's not exactly the happiest news I've had from someone, but go ahead"

"Misato, I'm talking about the big picture here" he continued "okay, technically we've taken one in the arse… but if Ryosuke accepts, which he will with the right bait…"

"You want to blackmail him with the video?" Misato said "that'll get all of us in trouble"

"compared to full exposure of your past lives, this is nothing" Sosuske said "of course Ryosuke would have everything to loose, attempted murder, assault, and the fact he is suppose to be a teacher, he wont survive"

"Alright, but all we accomplish from that is blackmail him into racing Rei, how does that improve our odds"

"A lot more then you think, remember what I said last night?"

"I know, you said that there was only a power gap" Misato took awhile to think about it "but that's no longer a problem…"

"Well that, and Rei is also essentially copying Shinji, so her skills are refined to the point she can chase someone pretty fast"

"Say again?" Misato asked "you mean she can't drive fast, how the hell does that help?"

"It doesn't" Sosuske said "but it does offer a solution"

Misato didn't speak for a minute "What kind of solution is that? You mean Rei can't drive fast on the downhill on her own?"

"Not exactly" Sosuske, "but if I'm reading the signs right, Rei can drive from memory"

"Nani?"

"I rang up Riksuto before and asked what kind of memory abilities she has…"

"Okay…you've lost me" Misato said, "tell me why you rang my friend and why you asked her mainly about that"

"The first one was because if your story last night is true, Riksuto is the only person I should ask" Sosuske said bluntly, leaving Misato dropping her head in embarrassment "the second is because I had a thought about something. Rei knows how to match someone in speed because she can see and remember how to corner fast; she merely copied Shinji's line from entry to exit"

"Copying the line?"

"It means you are breaking at the same second and your exit speed is the same almost. That's relativity hard to do, I don't think Shinji realized that, if Rei was trying hard, she could enter the corner with Shinji and twin drift the cars, have them no less the a meter apart when turning"

"That's impossible"

"Its not actually…well it should if Rei has only been driving for 2 weeks" Sosuske continued to explain it "but Shinji has been driving for almost 2 years; she is copying his techniques to catch up; Rei knows now when to break, when to accelerate… all because she has seen Shinji do it a few times.

"Okay… so how does this help me?"

"Rei has taught herself how to corner and exit fast in only a few weeks" Sosuske said, "the only weakness she has now is the lack of knowledge about the road"

"Which she cannot do without Shinji…" Misato said,

"…which Shinji cannot help her with my merely letting her trail him" Sosuske corrected the line for her,

"What do you mean?" Misato said,

"Let her do the morning delivery" Sosuske said "you'll see what I mean, tell Rei that she has to pretend Shinji is behind her and she has to break away and beat him"

"That's going to be a problem with a van" Misato said, "if you have the FC for a few days…"

"Misato… I have a proposal that'll make your tired face feel a lot better"

"Surprise me"

Both adults walked back into the garage and around the Trueno under the surgical white blanket. Up until now, Misato had always wondered what this other car was doing here, or who it was, or why the hell it was sitting in the second bay. Sosuske answered the question and ripped the dust cover off it. Misato was instantly surprised that it took her a minute to recognize the model of the car.

'It's another Mazda… not another RX-7 though… smaller… compact… not the RX-8 either… this one was only a two door coupe' Misato thought before common sense came over and she saw the badge on the boot. "An MX-5?"

"Correct… it's a smaller car, 1998 model, completely rebuilt, stock engine, but it has been reconfigured a bit, the brakes and suspension settings are modified to be stronger, they are heavier to do fast turns around high speed corners"

'Big enough spoiler?' Misato noticed the sports spoiler installed; it was raised a bit higher then even one on the late model FX-7's, it was the only visible change.

"This car is mine…" Sosuske said "but for the time your FC is for repairs, I'm loaning it to Rei for practice and to support your business"

"What?!" Misato spat out, "you're handing over your sports car?"

"I believe that's the point" Sosuske answered

"Why?" Misato asked again "you have nothing to do with this… so why"

"Because I think Ryosuke is underestimating both of the pilots"

It took a moment for notice that Sosuske had just taken a knock at calling then Evangelion pilots… it was a habit hard to break and she found it harder still to hear it from someone that was suppose to not say a damn thing to anyone

"Please… please… don't refer to them as pilots in front of anyone else… it's a bad habit to get into"

"I understand" Sosuske said "in any matter, I detest Ryosuke's style of antics… threaten blackmail, disable the driver, cause crashes… that's not how we're suppose to do things… and if Rei is going to practice, it may as well be in a car that Ryosuke hasn't seen yet"

"I see" Misato said, rental of a van for 4 days was going to be annoying. This convenient offer helped matters "anyway… I have two requests to make then"

"Shoot"

"I need you to tell Ryosuke about the challenge change, and we'll use the blackmail option" Misato produced a DVD copy of the video "tell him that Rei will challenge him, and if he doesn't, we'll take this the police, and we don't care what happens"

"I can do that" Sosuske expected it actually and had arranged a meeting with Ryosuke through Touya, "and the other thing…"

"I need you to do something to the FC…."

* * *

'There was just something unnatural about Rei and eating lunch' concluded Toji, sitting at the table with everyone else wondering the same thing about the girl at the end of the impromptu table created by moving tables into that pattern. The weather outside was cloudy again, and unlike Shinji, everyone preferred to sit inside. But while everyone else sat at the table chewing on sandwiches of various ingredients; all sharing the same concern and worry at the times ahead, Rei looked like she was bored and gave that same completion stare that made her look like she was concentrating on her lunch with the same thought pattern one would usually apply to a classics exam. 

"So, Rei… uh…" Toji started "how… are… things?"

"They are somewhat difficult, but I promised Misato I would attend school despite my lack of sleep" Rei answered honestly, "for the most part this morning, I've had a headache"

Toji sighed, showing on his face how disappointed he was. Also because that despite how bad the last day had been for everyone, and despite the fact he was suppose to feel guilty for getting sleep, Rei was perfectly fine and wide awake. Thought he was certain that she was doing that only for appearance purposes, she had to have incredible stamina to be lasting this long. Kensuke wondered the same, until now, he had never met anyone before that would be able to task 2 days and continuous function without cracking, Shinji was the exception to the law, but he didn't exactly perform perfectly, he remembered the race with Touya's S13 as reference.

"So what is Misato going to do today?" Hikari said, only being interest because she had an inept care for Rei, not that Rei really noticed anyway,

"Misato is presently taking the FC into Sosuske's shop so we can have it cleaned without many questions being asked about the blood" Rei started to explain, again in an emotionless monotone. Kensuke wondered if Rei was deliberately switching off her emotions whenever she had to explain something, or it had never come to her that you felt them when you talked about such details. Whatever the case, it was still disturbing to the rest that Rei could talk to normally under such adverse circumstances.

"Speaking of Sosuske…" Kensuke spoke, taking his chance to alter the course of the conversation "Where is Asisaka?"

"I don't know she usually buys her lunch" Hikari said "but she isn't this late normally, is she?"

As if timed, the girl from the other class entered the room, covered in reddish bruises that could only mean that she had one hell of a go at getting her bread first time around and she had to go again for some reason.

"Asisaka-san" Kazama said for the group, "over here…"

What stopped him speaking was the girl that walked in two feet behind Asisaka. He had personally met her once before, and never again. It was at that bakery last week… Kensuke and Toji instantly remembered her, having fresher memories of her coming and walking past them and Shinji several days before the accident. Hikari and Naoko were left unfazed, having never met her before, Rei did notice the girl, but her mental capacity hadn't told her that a reaction was required.

She was tall, taller then any girl and the guys sitting down suddenly felt like jolting from their chairs feeling her imposing height, he build was thin, but clearly athletic, she made Naoko, who was the star runner for her class take note. Her long violet black pony tail neatly combed perfectly and tidy. Her uniform was brand new and the navy blue with green over white trim vest/blazer, knee length navy blue skirt that the girls wore in the winter with the pure brand new white almost knee length socks gave her the a presence that every male in the school so far had experienced and agreed on

'Japanese beauty' was the first thought until they got a real good look at the face, it was serious, determined, smart, her pail skin wasn't absent, but there was something remarkably different, it was the eyes. The deep emerald green that pierced through the soul like an ancient sword, it was a serious determined look that instantly drew the respect of anyone having them directed at a person. There was no makeup that tried to turn her into a doll, nothing close to an accessory hung off her like some girls professed to love to equip their pockets with. 'A serious beauty' became the second, modified opinion of every male in school so far,

"Everyone, this is Sayuri Sakagami" Asisaka introduced her and answered the first instant question that Kensuke, Toji, Kazama and every male within the vicinity of her would have asked.

"Pleased to meet you" Hikari said, instantly recognizing the new uniform and introduction appropriate of a new student at the school, she had noticed the looks that she had already received, and to a girls point of view, she too had to instantly react, by standing, she realized that her eye level put her at Sayuri's chin, 'I'm not that short am I?'

"Pleased to meet you" Sayuri bowed with a serious tone and a face of no emotions, "please forgive me for intruding on your lunch"

"Oh no! Not at all!" Hikari said hesitantly, actually panicking that her reply was too off key or it relayed the wrong message or a half dozen other reasons that suddenly popped in her head, "please, have a seat!" Hikari took a step and yanked a seat out of a table and parked it a place around the impromptu table that the other four were sitting at, Asisaka grinned in embarrassment at the classroom's class rep; she had felt the same when Sayuri was assigned the seat behind her, it wasn't that she was strange, well not in a bad way at least. The young lady however… had an aura that you didn't mistake for a person of serious blood, Asisaka by now knew how to determine this, and it was just a matter of comparing her to Shinji and the rest, though in the morning so far, Asisaka learnt very fast that Sayuri was a very different kind of serious.

The class representative of her homeroom didn't exactly have any love for her duty of escort and decided to leave that to Asisaka to do. Sayuri with nobody else to talk to, Asisaka had been the first person; merely followed her to wherever she enjoyed lunch, which in this case was with different people.

"Forgive for my interruption" she replied coolly taking the seat and looking around the table, not exactly showing any sort of surprise that everyone was looking at her,

"I forgot to introduce everyone else" Hikari said suddenly again, hesitating and starting, pointing at everyone as she went "this is Toji…"

"Yo!" Toji replied before taking a rice ball to his mouth,

"…Kensuke…"

"j0!"

"…Kazama…"

"Hey!"

"…Naoko…"

"Hallo!"

"And finally… Rei…"

"Hello" Rei said nodding/bowing, not because of habit, but because she had been taught before that you should bow if someone else bows to you; that Hikari saw, gained some sort of reaction with Sayuri. She didn't smile, her mouth in fact didn't move an inch; but it was the eyes that almost flickered a moment, as to react to the comment and acknowledge Rei's presence alone. Everyone returned to lunch while the topic previous was locked off because of the presence of this new person. But it was Kazama's stupid conduct that forgot that,

"So Asisaka…" he started between chews "what is you brother going to do about Shinji's car?"

The reaction he got from Hikari's face told him straight away how taboo the subject was when Sayuri was around now. How odd it was for the entire conversation suddenly included the new student as a factor regarding the topic Asisaka noticed. She was already trying to befriend her despite how hard it seemed to be, but it already felt like Sayuri would fit into this group fine, just that she couldn't learn their secret yet, not until she could understand them first. For one, Shinji whom wasn't even aware that Naoko, Kazama and herself now knew, she didn't want to image what he'd do if a complete stranger learnt of his past, that of course didn't account for the fact that Sayuri didn't know herself already,

'Onii-chan didn't say anything this morning" Asisaka said, "but he said he was going to loan …" she paused and covered her mouth,

"Sosuske is going to do what?" Kensuke said quickly,

"I'm sorry, he said to keep that quiet"

"What's he going to do?" Naoko asked with some suspension flaring,

"I cannot say, it's suppose to be a surprise… you'll find out eventually" Asisaka clamped her hands in an apology, thus closing out the chances that she would accidentally spill the news. Sosuske had already made it clear that he didn't want anyone learning about his MX-5 yet.

"So where are you living in town?" Naoko said to Sayuri, "not a lot of places left to move into"

"It's near the top of the hill on the east side of town… I cannot recall the name"

"Near the top of the hill…" Naoko said aloud, thinking quickly, all the large homes and rich people lived on the east side of town, she lived on the south west side, near the school, so it was no surprise it took her almost a minute to figure it out,

"Hang on, besides a few old houses, there is only Karasuyama-2 Shrine"

"That is correct" Sayuri said, again showing little in the way of emotion,

"Huh…" Naoko concluded the thought, deciding not to go into any more detail about it, she decided on another approach, "what about, previous school?"

"I use to live in Kyoto-2" Sayuri said "my education is… unusual, but I went to an all-girls school prior"

"An all-girls school?" Hikari said 'those are rich and private places though, you don't just downgrade to a place like Karasuyama-2 public secondary school…'

"Yes…" Sayuri said "I completed studies and then my family moved"

"Completed studies huh?" Kensuke said 'why does she remind me Rei so much?'

The conversation ceased when everyone, in the school it seemed heard the noise of a door being slammed down the hall and a few minutes later heard the dull roar of a car starting up and driving away, a student looking out the window managed to identify the car.

"Hey its Ryosuke leaving" Sakuraba said, backing up the other male student "wonder why he is leaving, isn't lunch is almost over?"

"Nani?" Kensuke said "come on guys, we've got PE next!"

* * *

"I got to admit that sounds like a nice offer" Riksuto said over the phone, she was too almost about to finish her lunch break and go back on rounds. 

"and I've got it on paper that we're not responsible if Rei does damage to it, just that he wants full in the car when he gets it back" Misato replied,

"Alright, we'll recommence Rei's training tomorrow; presently her fatigue is what worries me"

"I know I know… ill take care of it"

"Speaking of which Misato" Riksuto said "when did you sleep last?"

"You know when… and I just got home so don't complain"

"Go get some sleep; you don't have to do the delivery run until five o'clock anyway"

"Yeah, yeah… alright doctor, ill see you tonight"

Riksuto hung up the phone and relaxed back in office chair; So far the rest of her very long work day had been complemented with short naps in her office, only to be woken up by a resident that didn't get something. It was very slow at this hospital on most days, but Riksuto didn't seem to mind it after having thought about it. For the most part, she found herself gaining an afternoon nap on the couch after doing her rounds in the morning, but it was to say the least, boring. Head of the doctors here at Karasuyama-2 medical centre seemed to have a boring price.

It was also why she seemed to take a lot of interest in her studies again; at least they were stimulating and didn't require her to answer stupid questions. Because of her curiosity and boredom, she picked up the file at the bottom of her pile and opened it, inside were the stats she had started to compile, they weren't really vital ones for the moment, at the present, it was a sheet of times, mainly indicating at what point of the daily video she got Rei and Shinji respectively passed a certain point of the course, there was no proper indication and Riksuto had to install something like GPS sensors or something to get more accurate times, all she really had now was the speed indicators and a clock indicating the time roughly within 3 seconds to when Shinji and Rei were performing.

She had to get this data organized, but there really nobody she could trust with stuff like this; Riksuto felt like approaching Misato about asking for the location of the trio, but from what she had already learnt, they were doing fantastic in Utsunomyia-1 with a sort of programming and business planning firm setup. There wouldn't be a way of calling her friends into action now, not yet anyway. Apart from time stats, there were the usual health and body stats, height weight and so on. But the most important papers were the stats between the 86 and the FC, as well as the sileighty, the S-13 and his best estimate statistics on the GTR-34.

This piece of information was very detailed at first and the doctor occasionally referred to a book for references to what he meant on a certain statistic. Like he had described before, the white and blue Mazda had a very good chance against the black GTR, he said that while the 86 could in a rhythmical situation defeat the car, Shinji was not close enough to that skill level. He gave with his best estimate of the corning skills that Shinji was displaying, it was far superior to Ryosuke, but he didn't rely on skill, just mere power evaded the problem all together. The last detail she received was in a fax this morning, it was a hypothetical evaluation of the skills Rei had,

'Having looked at the video several times until the crash, Rei has an incredible adaptation technique. She doesn't need to follow Shinji for very long before her pattern matches him. Shinji himself is incredible for his age and I think more racing oriented training will improve his skills further. However Rei seems to have a natural ability in driving that is barely tapped. Her ability to learn is amazing, considering that she has been driving for only two to three weeks'

It was a good enough verification that she was ready to face off a challenger in a real race, Riksuto had hoped o put her up against a less vicious competitor; but she had never anticipated on these set of circumstances coming up. It would be a sink-or-swim test anyway; merely putting up her rotary against a GTR was just raising the first bar a little higher then expected. But this was important compared to the long term goals she was intending to approach.

"So it's all a matter of Ryosuke being stupid enough to accept a counter challenge off Sosuske tonight"

Everyone knew that he'd have to, they had the perfect bait; despite the fact it would get both Shinji and Rei expelled, there was video evidence Ryosuke attempting to kill Shinji, who was a legal aged driver, while being chased by _for the record_ anonymous driver, that driver would be Riksuto, given she is the owner the car, and that would explain the extremely quick medical response. Everyone had worked their story out, they would try in every way to get Ryosuke discredited so that even if they lost the case, there would be a massive blow to his employability and integrity in the future, and if told people in court who they were? Then it would be the nail in the coffin; ramming Shinji for being a former Evangelion pilot would be considered a motive for murder.

Riksuto retreated from that dark thought for the moment and looked out the window. She was starting to get use to her view; it looked west and north, across the lake towards distant mountains on the other side. In all her many years, she realized that this was the first job she had where her office _had_ a view, and this was an especially good one. Too bad she thought the weather proved to foul things up and create a mist blocking her view of the mountains.

* * *

"So why did Sosuske give you this car?" Rei asked again, "I understand we need a replacement, but another sports car?" 

Misato had barely been awake for five minutes when Rei entered the house. She was actually quiet late by comparison. It was discovered Naoko, along with Asisaka had invited Rei along to take a new student to a downtown café. That in itself was amazing; rarely did Rei show initiative and tag along with even Shinji. Just how much change was effected by those stupid porn books Kensuke gave her…? Misato would never forget those things and still had to apologies to Shinji for thinking he bought them. Still, there was the expectation that Rei might have actually screwed up and failed to inform her guardian of that. The first thing Rei had asked a half sleepy Misato was why there a dark Blue MX-5 now occupied the spot the white and blue RX-7 had occupied when she left this morning.

"Because Sosuske is a kind loving man who just handed over his personal toy for you to learn how to kick that Ryosuke guy's arse" Misato said with a slowly rising, almost rhythmic tone.

"But isn't the MX-5 a lot more different in characteristics then the RX-7?"

"It is…" Misato replied "this car according to Sosuske is tuned better, that all I remember, its roughly equal in power to your car before, but when you get it back, your car will be better tuned then this one…" then thought '… I hope'

Misato felt like she sounded like a mother trying convincing her child to buy a different and cheaper thing at the toy store. She told herself that it shouldn't feel like this, the MX-5 was 2/3rds the way between the 86 Trueno and the FC Mazda according to Sosuske's explanation, and that was arrogated by stock value; besides, the point of this car was to get Rei to remember the course, and with some sort of exceptional luck, learn how to remember the course at full speed. Sosuske knew she was capable, therefore Rei thought the same, he wouldn't have entrusted her with a personnel asset such as this without a real reason.

"You'll be doing both the morning deliveries and afternoon deliveries, I need you to substitute for Shinji until he recovers" Misato said, Rei nodded and turned around, only to be stopped a moment later by Misato's arm "after you get some sleep Rei… you'll be starting 4am tomorrow"

"Yes Misato-san"

Rei turned to her room and walked there; ignoring the fact that Misato herself was herself not exactly firing on all cylinders, but she did give the instruction. She entered her… was it her room now that Shinji was gone for now? Rei supposed so because it meant that the bed was for the moment unused and she could use it now. She dropped her school bag, and essentially dropped back down onto the white sheets and started at the ceiling; now that she had the time to think, Rei's mind suddenly flooded with random unconnected questions that seemed to have no meaning right now. Many things about today and yesterday that her body was weakly trying to answer one at a time, not that it was exactly easy to accomplish even that.

Her mind gained unusual focus when she turned her head to the window, her attention came from the unusual noise that was Sosuske's MX-5 revving up; Misato had evidently fallen in love with the car she was only suppose to have for four days. When the sound disappeared, Rei failed to turn her attention back to the dull ceiling, instead faintly looking out the window towards the grey sky above her.

'It's strange…' Rei said to herself, 'I can feel something now… Shinji talked about it himself… but I don't know if that feeling is the same as fear'

How was it fear? She had taken it upon herself to step up to the plate and not be seen as a doll who couldn't have thought to do so. Was that the actual reason; or was it because it was Shinji who tired and failed? Her mind parted on two ideas, three really, but the third idea was too deaf to be of concern, what had made her say she would do it? Even without the guarantee that she could even be able match Ryosuke. She had witnessed Shinji battle someone once before, and that race wasn't as intense or as fear inducing as this one.

Was this how he felt before he took place in his first street race? Rei wondered for a moment; they called these races battles for some reason, it wasn't really a form of combat as far as one was concerned, nobody punched the other, but people did get hurt… twice already Ryosuke had thrown his fists of anger, both times connecting and taking brutal hits at her and Shinji. His threats, his demands… and he was certain that Shinji was the only one that could do it… so then why did he forget Rei… and further; why did Rei even challenge everyone and say she would battle the black GTR?

'Doll…emotionless doll… unfeeling doll… dolls cannot live… a mere doll…' Rei's answer slowly scrolled across her eyes. All her life until that moment last night, everyone's nickname for Rei was doll; a living but unloving Emotionless body, one that didn't include a soul. Her soul was there, its lack of development and intervention… even Gendo was pretty diligent towards ensuring she never created one, it was something that even in imagination could be replicated, even a clone two times over, Rei wouldn't have the same soul even if she was brought up the same.

But she wasn't a clone anymore, there was no person that could replace her, thus her life became valuable; so she couldn't just throw it away like her previous self had done. Because of that, Rei decided she wanted to learn how to act like everyone else, something her former guardian wanted, and the problem was how did someone learn that now? When nobody wanted to offer help; Kensuke did offer a viable solution that didn't annoy anyone. But with some misplaced thoughts; it lead everyone in some sort of shock and confinement; and later embarrassed anger, mainly directed at Kensuke. But nobody seemed to find it odd, at least in her mind they didn't find it odd.

Shinji had helped guide her in her first week at school in over two years, she was going to struggle, and there was no pretending that her grades were terrible. But Shinji had concentrated on Rei's social behavior, it was more of a concern to both of them that she didn't blow it, Rei had learnt school customs again, and with now Hikari, Asisaka and Naoko as guidance examples, she had stabilized into her own personality shell. It wasn't a very helpful one, Rei still appeared absent minded; but as Shinji put it, it seemed to work best for her to be like that.

If Rei had to summarize her reasons for standing up last night, it was because of two things; the first was she couldn't just stand there and do nothing if something, which apparently was now possible, could be done. The other reason was now clear in her mind and she grasped at it; from that night onwards, Rei Ayanami was no longer going to be a simple doll; she was going to learn how to think like everyone her age did, she was going to talk to people instead of just answering questions.

Rei rolled her head over to and dug her face into the pillow again. She realized then how hard that would be without Shinji now, this battle would define her, and there was a possibility that he wouldn't even be awake for it. Even after all the things he had done, if not obvious, at least subtle and helpful; Rei still couldn't stand being there alone without him. Sure she had friends now, Asisaka, Naoko and Hikari were certainly doing their best to conform and accompany her until he was better again. Riksuto, Misato and Sosuske, all senior to her in years and courage, were all backing her up now. Rei didn't know the feeling that she should have felt for it, but her mind had it already by interrupting the feeling of the pillow, and the scent of its previous user somehow imbedded into the fabric.

'Shinji…' Rei said closing her eyes, her energy finally starting to force her to go to sleep 'Why… do I feel fear… and at the same time… feel comfort?'

* * *

The meeting was as straight forward as normal; Touya had called at lunch to someone who called Ryosuke that he was to come to the usual dinner between Karasuyama-2 and Utsunomyia-1. Ryosuke had been infuriated that afternoon that he actually left immediately, after his meeting with the deputy principal and the history teacher. Both had determined that Shinji's report didn't have anything wrong in it and it was judged that putting a personal spin on things was not in anyway distasteful and there would be no further investigation. Further that Shinji's conduct outside school was not to be called into question when regarding to the form of employment that he undertook; even after the unfortunate accident yesterday. 

The deputy principal and the owner of the Katsuragi tofu shop had already discussed this in advance over a year ago when she first made Shinji drive. Shinji was important to the vital income of the business, which was stated was also his residence and it was therefore acceptable and slightly expected that Shinji would partake in the business to some degree. The principal had dismissed him, somewhat enraged when the student teacher stormed out of the room and slammed the door shut, and then out of the most absurd of things had jump in his car and left.

Touya saw the skyline pull into the dinner; he noticed straight away that the car's front lights were all smashed up and the little silver GT-R plate on the front was missing. A few minutes later, the meeting commenced,

"So what did you call me all the way out to this place for?" Ryosuke said,

"Come on now…" Touya said, "You had three hours of transit time, and we even allowed for your work timetable,

"Yeah well…it's not been a good day" Ryosuke said off balanced "so what have you got?"

"A proposal"

"Oh?" Ryosuke famed interest; he had to guess that Sosuske was aware, though Touya probably didn't know

"As you know… very well in fact" Sosuske started his sales speech "Shinji is currently incapacitated from a road 'accident' while training to race you"

"Shinji's out… again?" Ryosuke said almost laughing "what did that brat do this time? I say this is the first I've heard of it"

"which is surprising considering that you're a teacher at his school" Touya said, timed perfectly as Sosuske had taught him to say, both of them were going to co-operate on this one, it was annoying enough that Shinji was out but after describing the circumstances of Shinji's demise, Sosuske was surprised that Touya didn't do what he said first and snap the arrogant sadist's head off like he promised he would,

"I didn't have him for class today" Ryosuke said, hiding his distaste in not being able to get Shinji in trouble and getting his leak plan to backfire.

'Strike 1' Sosuske thought, keeping count was the key now "anyway, the proposal is pretty straight forward"

"And what's that?"

"Misato wants to put Rei and the FC in to replace Shinji" Sosuske said

"No deal" he replied simply

"And why not?"

"Shinji is my target"

"I don't know why the hell your so damn interested in just Shinji though, I know the story now, and Rei is pretty much the same person as Shinji"

"So she finally told you huh?" Ryosuke said, "I wondered when she would snap…"

'Strike 2' Sosuske licked his teeth and started to finish this "given the circumstances, I figure now was better then next week"

"So why do you want me to take Rei on?" Ryosuke said "she had that Mazda… no way I'm that stupid"

"If you were smart then" Sosuske said, "You'd remember that Rei doesn't exactly know how to race"

And here was the biggest single gamble, as far as Sosuske was concerned, he had to assume that Ryosuke forgot that the FC had been trailing him the whole race; instead concentrating on the 86 ahead of him. Sosuske had been playing a dumb game so far, not really relieving anything to Ryosuke. The purpose at this point was to tell Ryosuke the deal, that's it, act dumb until he had blown three chances to accept and shut up. It would make the next move hard as hell, but it would pay off if he managed to scare Ryosuke enough.

"How hopeless are you" Ryosuke said, angry at the misplaced rebut "It's not even like you to talk like this to anyone…"

"So you're afraid of racing someone who has only practiced 2 weeks?"

"I'm not afraid of her…" Ryosuke "if the silly bitch wants to chuck her life away, go right ahead, maybe he can join Shinji in the hospital for good this time,

'Strike 3'

"So what's your reply?'

"I'm not interested… and Shinji isn't going to race anymore is he? So suppose you better make your pitch"

"The deal is this, you race Rei… and keep whatever conditions you want… but Rei is going to challenge you in Shinji's place, she will use the car she currently has access to, which will be her Mazda RX-7"

"Oh… and what do you plan on using to make me stick to that deal"

"This" Sosuske picked out of his pocket the semi broken GT-R emblem that he had picked off the ground when he recovered the 86 "I recovered it when I picked up the car this morning"

"Is that all?" Ryosuke said "that's a pretty poor card"

"I know…" Sosuske said admittedly "so I got this card as well" he pulled out a DVD,

"Movie?" Sosuske said, quickly taking a tactical position on the subject.

"As you may have forgotten… the FC was following chase at the time when you interrupted our training session"

"Our?"

"Doctor Akagi hired me to drive in the chase car to keep up and teach Shinji some better racing oriented methods… Riksuto, as you know; being a scientist, had a video camera trained on him for the session, just a means of being able to critic him later on…" Sosuske said, laying the DVD down on the table, it scribbled in magic DVD marker 'session 8', he continued his lie "we saw it all, and the video has a good nice picture of you trying to kill a student, pressuring him into a race, even thought he wasn't really intending to do anything of a sort… and in front of us, you rammed him, knocked him off balance and forced him to crash…"

"You wouldn't…if you do, I'm just going to tell anyway" Ryosuke said, picking up something he could use, not realizing that it was pointless

"Then its not murder, its manslaughter with a motive to fit" Sosuske said, controlling the conversation as well as his Mazda coupe "Shinji may be down, but you have a chance to make it up… Rei wants to race you, and she'll even ignore the fact that you trashed her best friend into the wall… Misato wanted to call a lawyer, but Rei insisted you'd take the challenge… even without me having to warn you"

"You bastard…" Ryosuke said before laughing, he had just realized how helpful the situation was. Here he was, having evidence thrown at him… and being scared shitless because of it, but that stupid two-times-over clone girl was ready to disregard it even though her chances of beating her were even worse then Shinji, it felt almost too good to be true, it also was the only way of getting his story out and preventing that mistake landing him in jail.

"You expect her to even survive half way down the hill?" Ryosuke said,

"I think you should know that I don't care" Sosuske said, lying in the most disturbing way possible "really I'm just playing neutral in this"

"I don't care about your feelings you jackass' Ryosuke got up, displeased about this conversation, remembering to swipe the GT-R logo on the table while he got up. He could always run away "tell that bitch Misato she has a deal; next Saturday, 9pm… Rei can try beating me, but I'm not going to hold back"

* * *

A/N: Again, a little worried about how that final scene goes, but I suppose its worked out well. Thanks to everyone who replied to me on the previous three chapters. And to the more recent reviews from this chapter, ive fixed the problem, I think it was a layover from the version when Asuka was apart of the story, I do intend to put Asuka in, just the Ryosuke arc proved to be longer then I expected. 


	18. Episode 17: Countdown to conflict

After Evangelion

Episode 17: Countdown to conflict

_-3 years ago-_

The race was already close; the cornering ability of the chasing Mazda had already forced the Nissan in front to the limit as he violent tried to escape the beaming glare of the car's headlights. It had been a long time coming, his relentless hate for small cars and especially coupes; but he couldn't believe that his GTR-32 was being outclassed by a little bright blue car that had pop up lights. His taunts, his repeated wins on lower class, underpowered Toyotas, Nissans and even cars just like this little Mazda into submission. Now he was worried, he wasn't expecting a street racer to be this skilled in cornering and braking to exist.

The mountain pass was well distant from the busy business district of Tokyo-2; but this pass was favored by the Tokyo-2ites so much that it had become their home course, well actually several surrounding passes had become their territory, despite the absent fact that no one team had any active control over the single area.

"What the hell!?" Ryosuke hit the wheel violently,

His R32 was fast, but that was all it was, his braking was making the MX-5 trailing him pissed. How could someone rely so much on just mere power? The only time this bastard could break distance was on the straightway, and that was only for a short distance. The MX-5 was a 2nd generation model, evident by the pop-up headlights, its engine wasn't as high performance as its later incarnations were, but it was proving an equal match no matter, what was there left to do but…

"There…" Sosuske licked his lips and saw the opening that he had been waiting for over 10 minutes now, the mountain pass was relativity long by street racing standards, and so it was more of a endurance of concentration then a race to the bottom first, it had been this arrogant university under-graduates' stupid conclusion that he could try defeat a mechanic apprentice, who maintained his own car non the less… all by merely having a better car.

The MX-5 and the GTR-32 entered the short straightway and he timed his approach accordingly, in less the 500 meters, the road would S turn around some massive bolder. He would attack on the outside first and then take the inside on the second. It was predictable he thought looking at where the skyline was

"Sure it's a fast car, but it's got one problem…" Sosuske braked and spun his wheel, first to the left, and then countered the direction all the way to the right, at the same time yanking back on the hand break and forcing his car exactly into the drift he wanted.

"What!" Ryosuke literally spat into his windshield, his shock replaced with annoyance and anger at what was happening, it was almost to surreal for his imagination, the MX had just appeared from his left and was now hugging his front at a very steep angle. Ryosuke panicked, he didn't have to, but he did anyway; immediately he tapped the footbrake and his car instantly dragged back; instantly creating distance between him and the MX-5, now exiting the corner and starting to do a quick counter swing to the right now to exit the S-turn gently, and thanks to Ryosuke's stupid mistake of breaking, he was also now a distance away and had lost speed as a result.

"Well… that was easy" Sosuske said exiting to the straightway, he had only created 80 meters of distance, and he had still about a third of the road to the finish line. Already he felt that his trick he dubbed it, had made the required distance, but Ryosuke could make up the distance lost in acceleration, there where 3 main straightway here that could, at even Ryosuke's level, break the distance back down to ten meters in a matter of minutes; and indeed it did, in fact Ryosuke managed to get right on his tail now. Sosuske wasn't really worried; his braking entry gave him a few more meters of breathing distance before entering the corner. He wouldn't have his Mazda back rammed by this bastard of a driver.

"Damn…" Ryosuke yelled 'I can't break into the front, that son of a bitch is blocking me'. It looked like it, but Ryosuke was nowhere near the distance apart from his opponent to be saying that. Sosuske had left his Mazda do a wider corner drift, just on the wide chance that Ryosuke could use an opening. Smaller corners were where his car was easier to use then a larger and bulkier GTR.

"I'm not going to let you take me out!" Sosuske yelled to nobody but his rear view mirror. The Mazda broke into the clear, followed closely by the skyline. In the chasing care, Ryosuke was starting to work out how to off balance his opponent into… his mind found the answer finally.

'I have to disrupt his rhythm' Ryosuke thought, 'how to do that…"

Without warning the GTR started to do a snakes run on the straightway, the purpose being to move his lights left and right across the rear view mirror, he intensified this by turning on the high beam.

"What the hell do you think your doing?" Sosuske yelled, "You think blinding me is going to do it?"

Sosuske numbed his mind and started to concentrate on the road ahead now, he had to focus on the road if his opponent was going to start making a fool of himself and flash his lights. He had to continue, ignoring it was the best solution. After a few minutes of corners and straightway, Ryosuke had no choice but to concede his tactic was failing. Sosuske was too skilled a driver to be taunted into a stupid tactic like that. It had come to this then, there would be resolve if he didn't beat this guy, and a win was a win right? Nobody really cared how you got it in the end.

Ryosuke then had figured out how he would do it, no more then a mere second after the thought had emerged from the darker recesses of his mind, did he plan the destruction of the car ahead of him. He slowly edged out behind the Mazda on the left side as they entered the high speed corner, naturally the MX-5 started to swing its rear into a four wheel corner high speed drift, Ryosuke saw his chance, almost… there. Despite taking the corner, Ryosuke suddenly accelerated and started to drift his Skyline, dangerously loosing control and catching up with the MX-5 which was blocking the roadway, this half circle turn would end soon, so he had do it now or never. It wasn't a very good tactic, even by cheating standards. Ryosuke slammed into the back of the MX-5 at exactly the right moment.

Sosuske would have seen it coming, it was so simple an action, but Ryosuke's actions flashing the lights had forced him to ignore his mirrors. The sudden jolt from the back corner came as not a mere surprise, but a full on heart attack as he suddenly lost control of everything. The MX-5 started to spin out, the wheel wasn't responding, he tried both brakes, then fatally he chose the accelerator, but that was a vital flaw that even Ryosuke hadn't considered. Because of his angle now, driving straight would put him at a 90 degree with the side of the road; Ryosuke had braked rapidly when the car blocked the entire road. It was the gutters that did it, it unbalanced the front wheels and the car tipped forward, down until...

The bang sounded like that of a gun going off, or a small explosion. But the Mazda exploded off the ground, rolling in the direction of forward. Sosuske knew it, he couldn't do anything now, he held onto his wheel and prayed that it would be quick, it were to happen. The first crunching impact as the driver's side and roof hit at an angle, starting momentum again to further roll the car over for another revolution. Ryosuke had slowed dramatically, and his ability to speed away fast was gone. But when the first gape he saw wide enough for car opened, he floored the accelerator, smashing the side of his GTR-32 with the upside down MX-5, evidence of an accident there would prove he couldn't have possibility seen it coming.

The car stopped rolling on its third rotation, it was right side up, but the driver's side was practically collapsed. Underneath the thin metal roof, Sosuske sat there unconscious, the steel and titanium bars backing his bucket seat had saved his spine from being compressed and his neck snapping like a twig. The car was stopped, the front wheel axel had collapsed and it sat there, in the dark exit of a corner, only to have silence cut with the shouts of the audience on the side of the road running to the car.

* * *

_-Present day-_

Sosuske opened his eyes again; it took a moment, but he eventually regained focus and saw the underbelly of the FC's 13B turbo engine. It had taken a moment to realize he had been sleeping under the car, all night as a matter of fact; by seeing the distinct yellow glow that came through the garage windows. He didn't move at all, instead focusing on whatever it was that he was trying to do last night.

"Yes… it really is an unresolved fight between us too isn't it?" Sosuske said to himself as he stared at the section of suspension piping his wrench had magically stayed in place over the period of the night. His mind eventually started clicking and remembered what he was doing. Giving a tug on the wrench, he found he had finished locking the front left wheel suspension bar back into place after replacing the springs.

His mind started to multitask, the conscious part looking to see what else was done and what still need needed fixing. The other part, his usually unconscious part thought about the dream again… no, memory. He remembered that whole race, and its aftermath. Everyone had disgraced Ryosuke for his move since the arrogant student from the history department forgot that the galleries were watching. But the crash had effectively ended Sosuske's racing career. His MX-5 was almost completely totaled, it had taken time and patience, of which Sosuske had expended… in rebuilding and repair work to bring it back to effective use, but the time off the track and time to recovery from his injuries, as well as the arguments from his parents and family for the reckless acts he had so repeatedly been warned against and told to stop; had all ended his chances.

Sosuske thought that with the move to Karasuyama-2 he could try restart and regain his abilities in solitude. He had the car for the task, and it was really in his opinion a completely new car, more powerful then the old one. He had repainted the car to a dark blue and changed the headlights and front part of the body to a more modern version of the Mazda roadster. It was a different car now, and it was why he understood Misato's request the other day, he would be sure to finish that aspect of the upgrade today.

Deciding to have breakfast, he got up and walked out to the house section of the building. There he found Asisaka making breakfast; if there was one thing Sosuske was glad for was his little sister tagging along with him to move to Karasuyama-2, if anything to get a fresh start in a smaller town then Tokyo-2's metropolis. What it really meant for him was someone to clean the house and in this case, prevent the mechanic from starving.

"Good morning Onii-chan"

"Morning…" Sosuske dropped onto a chair and yawned; Asisaka turned around and gave him a look that indicated her disappointment at her brother's failure to sleep in a bed.

"Did you fall asleep in the workshop again?" she said with the displeased look,

"Gomen…" he replied weakly "I guess I have been working too hard on this FC…"

"Well go clean your face before you eat" Asisaka sighed and turned back to take care of the pancakes she had been monitoring. He did so and five minutes later he returned to the table, his face now not covered in motor oil and other random droplets of grease that had come off the FC over the previous several hours. Her younger sibling worried about that, the fumes and liquids were toxic to a human, but somehow he hadn't any fall into his mouth, eyes or nose, she subjected this to pure luck that he never fell asleep near the gas tank or coolant pipes.

"So how is school?" Sosuske said, "Didn't you mention something about a new student?"

"Yes" Asisaka continued to eat, "she's very quiet… shy almost, but she doesn't feel shy, you know?"

Sosuske didn't get it, but there was no point in confusing the teenager by having her explain the meaning to that. Instead he decided to ask about Rei, it was important to Sosuske because today he was due to return the FC, now tuned for street racing. It was a marathon effort in fixing the new engine turbo system and giving the whole engine a badly needed retuning and installing the spoiler that came optional with this variant of the RX-7. Yesterday he accomplished everything expect the request Misato had asked, though really he needed another day now to finish the suspension setting on the car; the rotaries were notoriously difficult cars to balance properly.

He had to finish this one task on time so Rei could take the care for one test drive. He thought of asking Misato about getting painted on the Saturday, just before the race, but he doubted that it was a good idea to give her any more stress.

"Rei is doing well, I think at least… it's very hard to tell because she doesn't talk a lot" Asisaka drabbed on, her explanation was broken and confusing, which suited Sosuske just fine since prolonged talk wasn't his thing.

"Well, you can say she will have her car back by the end of today" he smiled "but be sure that Ryosuke-_Sensei_ doesn't know"

"I understand Onii-chan" she got up from her seat and picked up her bag, "please promise to clean up before I get back okay?"

With that Asisaka got up and left for school in the customary manner that high school girls in Japan had done for over half a century, albeit her mind today was filled with worries that were punctuated by an inner ring of hope still defending the centre of her soul.

* * *

Because of the unusual occurrence of Rei walking to school on her own, Asisaka had arranged to meet up with her on the way to school, and from there, they met up with her new classmate, Sayuri; who in her only day at school so far, had already been asked out by several guys. All of which received fair warning not to ask so again after being rejected as elegantly as dropping fine china on a cement floor.

Hikari had looked the three girls entering the school with something approaching an ashamed look, but really it was jealously. Asisaka was cute, her medium length hair and light blue eyes and very reserved and polite demeanor created a high school student guys would die for. Rei was attractive in a quiet way, much like one finds a girl with glasses attractive. Then there was Sayuri who in a uniform as clean and new as that, and rather natural beauty. She that didn't seem to need much of the way of maintenance either and her body looked well toned.

Hikari looked down at herself, plain, combed hair in a hairstyle suitable for a grade school student, her freckles and rather lack of body growth in essential areas made her look… plain. Added to that was Hikari's well known characteristic of intense seriousness that made her unpopular with the class.

"You know I would love to have those sorts of bodies" Naoko spoke to Hikari, after having at least a minute to read her face and see who it was she had tracked with eyes. Both girls without Shinji to bother were bored to death, and Naoko in particular needed someone to needle and tease, today it was Hikari's turn.

"Wh-wh-what?" Hikari turned in a display out of utter shock and surprise.

"You know what I mean" Naoko laughed and patted her on the shoulder "I mean Rei has that cute and quiet look… Asisaka is just looks like that Mikuru girl I saw on this anime once… and that Sayuri… oh who do I have to kill to look like her?"

Hikari's face was blubbering words, not anything coherent but her eyes still had the look of someone that just was told something like 'I killed your baby'.

"Relax Hikari" she laughed and turned back to the window looking down at the school entrance "you need to learn to relax"

"What do you mean?" Hikari finally replied

"This whole Shinji thing, and just now you" Naoko replied "you need to loosen up"

"I can't do that" Hikari said "I'm the class representative and I…"

"Don't be stupid, "every other class rep here isn't as tightly wound as you are"

"They aren't facing a public exposure this Saturday" Hikari shot back

'Well, there _is_ that…' Naoko wondered sarcastically before continuing, "So what? When you think about it, who here is going to care anyway?"

"What do you mean?"

"You weren't one of them were you, okay, you might've if circumstances came your way… but you're technically not"

"Well no but…"

"And I hated those things until Shinji's mother told me those things right?"

"She isn't really Shinji's mother Naoko-Chan…" Hikari corrected for her. She was starting to get a little worried about Naoko spilling the gossip on Shinji. It was amazing so far that she even had the restraint power to keep it under wraps. But she was narrowly following the fine line between vague and implied.

"I know Hikari-tan" she smiled back up at Hikari which sort of irked the class representative, "but those people…" Naoko nodded to a bunch of girls talking at the door nearby, "…don't know that do they?

Naoko thought that lie was really one to worry about, after all, from what she knew of Misato, apart from being a sometimes blind drunk guardian who couldn't keep balance unless Shinji helped; she wasn't a bad person. Shinji tolerated her, Misato accepted him; it all worked in some weird, passionately ironic way.

"Thanks Naoko"

"Anytime…" Naoko turned to the three girls approaching them "good morning you three"

"Good morning Naoko-san, Hikari-san" Asisaka said for all three girls, "what were you two talking about just now?"

"Cup sizes" Naoko bluntly,

At once, Asisaka Blushed red in embarrassment, Sayuri went white in a sort of silent and pale rage that indicated her unfamiliarity or lack of comfort of the topic while men were present, and Rei's right eye opened a little wider as she wondered why they were talking about body measurements.

* * *

Riksuto had made certain that Rei got as much practice as possible in the previous several days, and right now was going over the results to the test results. From what she could tell, which was vague, Rei was starting to adapt to the course as the times for certain checkpoints were slowly coming down. The video was now a normal thing as she needed to see how fast she was really going for certain stages of the course. Riksuto didn't feel this motivated towards study since the very early days of her time at NERV, back when the Evangelion program was in its infancy.

Her desk was now littered with books and various papers. Most were books on the dynamics of motor sport racing in cars. Much to her interest was a paper from the university she was educated at. It had done a psychical study on race drivers and what made them function. She was already deeply interested in this material and it had made the cleaner a little confused this morning when she picked up a book left on the ground which was a big thick almanac full of car designs since 1950.

Riksuto had even made some of the other staff members curious when she bought some car magazines from the downstairs news agency, to a very confused part time employee. All this didn't affect her rounds, where she as a doctor was still very efficient. She made 3 a day, at 8:30 in the morning, another at just before lunch and a final just before she went home. Unless something came up, she was stuck in her office flipping through books like a student desperate to study before the final exam.

"Dr. Akagi?" the secretary sounded from the door

"Yes?" Riksuto thumbed next page and looked for a stick-note to mark the page for something.

"Your friend is back to see you"

"Oh… let her enter" she closed the book and put it to a side "Misato… enjoying the car?"

"You drove it here, I had to walk" Misato frowned at her friend and presently roommate.

"So, it sure looks like a chief surgeon's office in here" Misato noticed the book that was labeled on the cover simply as the technical manual for a 1987 model Mazda RX-7

"I've got time to read things up"

"Read, write notes and draw charts…" Misato picked up a paper that showed a comparison between heartbeats per minute to time, liberally marked with little x's with notes like 'hairpin corner 4'.

"There is an issue with that?" Riksuto yanked the print page away and reviewed the date on it to find out that was the one she had been looking for the past hour.

"Misato… aren't you taking this a tad too seriously?" Misato picked up a book to read the cover "I mean this isn't healthy for you to suddenly be doing research"

"Can't I help but being interested?"

"I guess not, but…" Misato picked up a DVD case from the other chair "_Tsuchiya Keiichi's Drift bible_?"

"Oh yeah, can you take that back to Sosuske, it's his"

Misato cocked an eyebrow and wondered if Riksuto was under going some sort of mid-life change. It was as if racing was the newest medical study field, or whatever they called it, Misato thought in a skeptical, but non-reviling way. She decided not to venture into it, and decided to change the topic,

"How is Shinji doing?"

"You just saw him didn't you?"

"Well I did, but people in coma rarely answer that question"

"He is doing okay" Riksuto replied placing the paper she had been holding back on a pile, "chart says that he'll be alright, all he has to do is wake up"

"Question is does he want to?"

Both mid aged women thought about that one. Shinji must've still had some awareness that if he was unconscious, he'd lose the Saturday deadline to be ready. And if Rei lost her race, which the odds dictated, then would he want to wake up… Maybe killing Shinji with painkillers would do him a favor. Riksuto's mind urged to forget that idea, she didn't kill patients.

"On another question regarding that" Misato pointed to the RX-7 manual, "I have to pick up your car today"

"So that's why you're here" Riksuto smiled "you want to take one last spin in the car?"

"No, I already did that once and I almost smashed his precious car into the back of the ice cream truck"

When Misato first got her hands behind the wheel of the MX-5, she had decided to go for a 'test' spin. She ended up speeding down cherry blossom avenue, almost slamming into the back of a truck unloading crates of ice cream. Misato thanked the heavens that the breaks, those reinforced pieces of engineering art, were perfectly aliened. Which in doing so, prevented a funny, long winded, and otherwise embarrassing explanation of how Sosuske's car had its front smashed.

"I guess you learnt that lesson" Riksuto said "so what are we going to do about the race then"

"Rei is still looking like she can do it" Misato said, "before she left for school, her eyes looked different then before…"

"I guess that's a milder improvement then before when she had no emotion" Riksuto said "I've got to sit down and figure that one out though"

"Her emotions?"

"I have no idea what to do with her either" Riksuto replied "this racing thing seems to be opening her up, thought I should thank Shinji for smoothing out the edges in her going back to school"

"I talked to Sosuske on that issue yesterday" Misato replied "it seems in Shinji's absence, Rei hangs around Asisaka now"

"Odd that isn't Toji or one of the others"

The small talk was getting thinner, and the reason for Misato being here was started to look more serious. Riksuto was starting to wonder why since there was no reason for it; Rei's race was tomorrow after all. She had suspected there would be concern, just like when there was still the threat of angel attack.

"Something is on your mind" Riksuto put it bluntly, "you haven't been this worried about Rei, or hell, anything since back in those days"

"I'm not worried, just slightly…"

"…concerned" Riksuto finished the line, "Misato, it was you that said yeah to Sosuske for the car, it was you who said go ahead for Rei, what's there to worry about? Between today and tomorrow is all the distance there is before the start of the race and now you're starting to think carefully?"

"Riksuto…that's not what I meant and you know it"

"Then I suggest you go get Rei her car back from the repair shop so she can start getting use to the different car, all this data here is telling me she can do it in 3 runs or so before everything is down pat.

"That's the other thing I need to talk to you about" Misato finally returned to the original topic "when this is all over, what are you going to do?"

"I haven't exactly thought that far ahead to be honest" Riksuto said "but I'll probably let Rei continue to learn at a more gathered pace"

"You mean your not going to track her with all this statistical data and lecture her 3 hours a night over techniques and videos that I can't even bother sitting through… its racing Riksuto, not psychics" Misato ranted for a moment. Ever since Rei took up the bet with Ryosuke, the doctor had made sure that every chance Rei got to drive was taken and those other times were filled with information.

"It's how Rei operates remember, her memory is fantastic for this sort of thing"

"just promise me when its all over to give her a break" Misato rubbed her head and sighed, it was time to go anyway, just promise me that and we wont have to argue later"

"Alright, after tomorrow, only racing if Rei wants to"

This of course would be hard to tell since the teenage former Evangelion pilot was hard to interpret. She still didn't quite have all the autonomy that indicated self independent thought. But Misato there was still hope, all this time Rei was having interacting with people as of late was starting to crack her mold. Tomorrow's race would determine a lot of things, such as if Rei would start to evolve and finally start to grow up.

* * *

Lunchtime was quite the normal and the class was for the first time in days not pondering real loud about the absence of Shinji. Hikari had thought that somewhere close to a miracle, since her class seemed to never forget anything like a debt or an unexplained mystery, such as the disappearance of a student. They had all determined hospital stay, but nobody cared to go further into that since Naoko and Kazama weren't real interested. If the two leading gossip hubs were not interested, then it didn't matter.

Lunchtime in variably had changed the equation of guys to girls at the table, and with Shinji deleted and Sayuri added. There were now 3 guys to 5 girls; this in all circumstances changed a lot, including the topics discussed.

"Rei, you need to get a better hairstyle" Naoko said out of the blue,

All three guys chocked as the topic reached a region of space that man rarely ventured into, let alone explored. This area of void was given a lot of names; the great unknown, the last frontier… but really it had one name, and it was called the woman's mind.

"What do you mean?" Rei said,

"Don't you ever have it cut?" Asisaka joined into the conversation.

"Of course" Rei replied, "but only to have it shortened"

"It feels so tomboyish though" Naoko said in a funny whining voice that made the other girls roll their eyes or laugh. Sayuri didn't react to anything; they still hadn't figured her out; that was today's objective.

"What about you Sayuri?" Hikari asked "do you think Rei needs a new hairstyle?"

"I don't see what's wrong with it" she said when she wasn't eating. It seemed to be something she was determined to do in a hurry everyone thought. Naoko had wondered at length about the background of this girl, and that had resulted in some rather unorthodox methods yesterday when she begged school records to hand her file over. Neither the register clerk nor the nurse was interested in doing that.

"I guess you wouldn't have to worry about it?"

"I don't worry about my hair" Sayuri said,

"that sounds rather strange, your hair looks like you take good care of it" Hikari could see how it looked like every strand had been washed several times. Then again there didn't seem to be something really strange about her, she had been able to see her in PE yesterday, and from what Asisaka had reported back, all the other girls were complementing on the other features of her body in rather jealous curiosity. It felt rather weird that she didn't say she cared.

"Then what do you use to clean it?" Naoko asked, since she wanted to buy some of the stuff this afternoon

"Water and soap"

"Yes…but what brand of shampoo…"

It took a minute before she replied again, since she had the curiosity to eat before answering "Water and soap"

"Okay…" Hikari said, like it had been the first time she had heard someone say that.

'This is going anywhere' Toji glared at Kensuke,

"So…" Naoko attempted another go; she was determined to at the very least make her blush "have any of the clubs asked for you to join?"

Naoko knew that the athletics club, the soccer team and the archery club had all asked at least once since she arrived if Sayuri was interested. With that sort of person in the team, who wouldn't be? Since yesterday's psychical education class, it showed everyone for the first time that she wasn't just a pretty doll, but one all round excellent student. Naoko had noted with some horror that she had shed her personnel best at the 400 meters by a second, and then two on the second run.

People were starting to wonder where the hell she came from, the official papers felt like they were lying, as one jock put it. There were wondering, in a joke; if Japan still had a place where it produced girls who were perfect in everything and looked beautiful. Hikari had thought the joke in rather ill taste at hearing it. But even she had quietly thought in the dark recesses of her mind if that were true. Whatever it was, it didn't feel natural that Sayuri was this good.

The only subtle admittance of a weakness was before when Asisaka had noted Sayuri had a hard time in math that afternoon when she couldn't solve some questions. The thing that disturbed Hikari the most was that this behavior was reminiscing of...Rei from back in middle school. The class representative looked at the two, Rei with the brighter then normal Red eyes and short lighter blue hair, and Sayuri with the deeper deep emerald green and violet Black long hair that almost touched the floor from where she sat.

'They are almost the completely the opposite in appearance' Hikari noted, 'but their personalities are like if they were cloned'

"I don't understand why we are asking these questions" Rei asked Asisaka. This Hikari noted; made Sayuri react, subtlety seemed to be something she was trained in, very well she noted.

"It's hard to explain to you…um…Naoko?"

"Its normal talk, just like this morning when I was talking to Hikari"

"But if I recall, wasn't that about chest size?" Rei asked in her blunt, honest, and otherwise amazingly direct way.

At once, both Kensuke and Kazama spat drink of out their nose and Toji dropped his lunch. Naoko and Hikari looked at them with a look of utter disgust that they couldn't be the least bit subtle as Sayuri or Asisaka was, whom she noticed the former seemed to react very little from Rei's slip of words.

"Rei" Naoko chuckled, "you certainly know how brighten up my days"

"I don't understand"

"Don't worry, its complicated"

"I understand" Rei backed her chair out and stood up "may I please be excused for a moment and bowed. It was a habit that Rei still hung onto, despite the fact that Hikari said it was not required. It however got a reaction out of Sayuri who nodded a seeming approval, if not as permission, then for her display of manners.

'Those two are on the same wavelength' Hikari sighed while she saw Rei at the corner of eyes walking out the door "I guess there isn't much we can help with that"

"What is?" Sayuri asked, for the first time asking a question on her own,

"Rei, she use to be home schooled or something, her mannerisms aren't exactly refined to a high school grade yet"

"I see…" Sayuri said before eating, everyone waited for her to finish "She sounds like an interesting person"

Everyone in the table felt like nothing further could make them feel more disturbed then by that comment alone. Hikari, Asisaka and Naoko all had their own opinions of the strange girl currently gone, but interesting wasn't a word they could associate very easily to Rei. The trio of males was just as bemused, but for different reasons. It was sort of funny to see Hikari and Naoko confused and rather cute to see Asisaka confused. Even if Shinji wasn't around to witness this, it still proved funny for a completely unknown girl to befuddle the chief gossip expert and class representative in one go.

"How is she interesting?" Asisaka asked

"She is honest" Sayuri replied "when she has a question, she will ask it"

"Well…" Hikari sort of felt embarrassed at the truth in that statement. "Rei sort of sees things from a different perspective"

"I see" Sayuri replied without emotion.

"It's not a bad thing" Hikari quickly replied, attempting to cover her assumed mistake in branding Rei "usually Shinji is here to help Rei out"

"You have mentioned this person before" Sayuri asked "an older brother?"

"Not really… well I guess they are sort of brother and sister the way she hangs around him" Naoko answered,

"I see" Sayuri continued to eat without being interrupted for more questions. Hikari didn't know what to make of this girl. Maybe if Shinji came back, he could help figure this one out; the other three surely didn't have a chance. And Hikari was at the end of the rope of her own patience. But before anything else could be said, the bell tone stuck over the PA system and the students moaned in some annoyance as lunchtime signaled its conclusion for the day.

* * *

There was just something unnatural about the look of it. Sosuske had decided earlier that the FC color scheme was very cheaply done; the blue strip over a white base color must've been something of a joke to whoever painted the car originally. So when the car was finally finished from painting, he was glad to say that this car had finally been reborn.

Nothing like the FC Misato had put into service several days earlier, the car now had a completely tuned engine in balance with an adjusted gearbox he had tested out a few times the previous day. Even without the special additions, the Silver color gave the FC a required rebirth before its race tomorrow. The several things he still had to do, the remaining decals he had to add, again at the special request of Misato. As well as finishing installing the new tachometer would take another hour at the most.

The old one was actually out of sync with the speed it was suppose to be doing, and it made people think they were going 5km/h faster then normal. He had decided that the modifications he wanted to do could wait for another day. But the machine was able to race properly now. He realized that Misato couldn't possibly afford to pay this all upfront on a mere small shop salary. Riksuto might pay for it, since it was her car, and was now starting to get very interested, as far as borrowing books and DVDs to compile her research with.

Sosuske had felt that she was overdoing it with the statistics, graph charts and that heart rate monitor thing she had Rei wear during her previous three days training. He figured that Riksuto was really just as Misato implied, one step closer to a mad scientist, but a step back because of her job as a mother.

"It really looks like a race car now" Misato said inspecting the now clean interior, the seats had been changed out for something resembling bucket seats "you're really a miracle worker"

"As I said, this is the best I can do in a few days, I'd prefer we had a day to let the paint dry properly, but I suppose Rei needs to get use to the difference in cars"

"She'll be fine, Riksuto faxed you the data didn't she?"

"Yeah" he scratched his head "and some of the things she is talking about I've never heard of before"

"Well, as I told you, once she gets into something, she just won't stop until she finds the answer to whatever her current interest is"

"I know that…" Sosuske walked over to the pile of papers he had attached to a clipboard, "but I can't help but keep calling her slightly nuts… was she always like this?"

"Every day, and like you wouldn't believe" Misato sighed in acknowledgement. "Riksuto just couldn't look at something about once a day, she did every five minutes"

Sosuske nodded, reading through the same charts that Misato had seen in Riksuto's office before. He didn't see how this made sense to anyone, but he figured that Misato knew either. He figured Riksuto was the sort of person who looked for a scientific and logical explanation to everything, which explained a few things about her when they first met, weeks ago at Shinji's second race. She knew psychology, computer engineering, biological engineering, and was a fully qualified doctor. What he didn't understand was the way her mind thought on matters. Well if an old friend like Misato didn't know, then maybe nobody would.

"How has Rei been doing from a normal point of view?"

"She sounds more… confident…" Misato said, somewhat irked by the last word. It wasn't exactly something she was use to associating to her yet; she had to snap out of the habit. Too much time had passed since her arrival for her to even think it was the same person she remembered two years ago during the war. But Misato guessed it would take time to work out all the details.

"Not exactly something you think of Rei is it?"

"No, it isn't…sorry"

"I don't think confident is a word I could see in her either…" Sosuske replied bluntly, "She looks weak, confused; sometimes I think she is staring into space, at least every time I've met her she seems that way"

Misato sighed at the description, if there was a way to insert more…something into Rei. Try and make her a normal teenager instead of someone who read comic books for references and solutions to daily entanglements. There was still nothing to help her, despite the fact that she had made some rather interesting developments since her arrival, she was still clueless, but she was now asking more questions, talking more; which in the greater scheme of things was better then being trained by Riksuto or herself to be more sociable.

"I guess that can be an advantage for tomorrow" Sosuske announced

"What do you mean?"

"Even despite all of this, you know the funny thing?" Sosuske started "even Ryosuke thinks Rei hasn't changed, it's like she expression to make him think otherwise"

"But he sees her in class every few days of the week, that doesn't mean anything"

"Rei in class is like Rei paying attention because she was taught to right? I doubt He hangs around her at lunchtime, and I doubt he has actually talked to Rei more then the times we know about" Sosuske continued to explain "especially all Ryosuke has seen is a pale albino skinned girl who can't talk or even has the emotion to do anything, to him he'll badly underestimate the ability she has"

"But Sosuske" Misato replied "he has seen her drive…"

"He was more focused on Shinji then, not Rei. Remember that he has been so concentrated on fighting Shinji that he has forgotten all about Rei in this one" he started to summarize his speculations, which so far were making Misato's light bulb go off "so when she finally spoke up and said she'd fight, he thought that either you or Riksuto must've told her to go in Shinji's place"

"But still, Rei isn't that good as Shinji; she hasn't had the time to race"

"That doesn't matter really; it's still an advantage that beats skill, having too much confidence in your opponent can be a mistake"

The light bulb in Misato's head went white bright then, her nod merely conceding the point that their chances of winning tomorrow just increased.

* * *

Previously, Rei supposed that English, the language that originated half way around the world on another island like Japan; had been designed to make Japanese people sound like idiots. On doing her homework, her observation was now confirmed as she read through the pages of hamlet. Their English class had required them all to give it a shot, but what resulted was a laughing fit from every student as broken English mixed with sentances that in no way made any grammatical sense modern times.

The teacher had wanted to demonstrate the classics of another language. But to Rei, it may as well been ancient Greek cooking instructions. The problem with her grades was that she had to catch up two missing years while at the same time appear as though she was slightly behind because of school transfers. Riksuto had felt like it was a good idea for her to be held back a grade and start back a year, but speculation of what she would do didn't permit her to consider the risk.

Her math was excellent, her classics, and anything language related however, suffered from lack of experience or classroom time.

"Shinji had the same sort of problems too Rei" Misato said from the couch, sipping her fifth beer of the day.

"He had time and he had been in class the last two years, how could he fail to understand all of this?"

"Shinji is sort of lazy at his studies, then again when we moved here, he had a sort of mental problem and all that depression… man it was a miracle we got him out of that'

Rei thought about that, her vague memories of Shinji near the end of the angel war were mixed between and very sketchy. She could remember parts of her former self's memory of Shinji, though that was mixed with the contradiction of when she first met Shinji herself, as a clone of the girl she had first met. At the end of it all, Shinji was a wreck, and her final sight of him confirmed her opinion that his life would soon be ending.

Two years later and through the passenger side window of the car she would drive tomorrow; she saw a new person. Shinji was taller, his body was more relaxed, and while he had a frightened look on the first meeting, he was overall a better and healthier person. How did he ever get to become what he was now, after looking like a dying man then? The journey to restore his soul had to have been one that Misato sweated through.

But there had been other elements to the whole story hadn't there? Shinji's classmates; some old ones from Tokyo-3, some new ones who until recently had seen Shinji a different way completely. He had been given a second chance at life and he had made effective use of the situation, gaining independence from his past was one of many things that seem to represent the Shinji of the present. Rei wondered if it could happen to her if she had the time. Probably…if it worked for Shinji, then would it work for her too?

Rei looked up, and found she was looking at Misato; who somehow in Rei's deep though got off the couch and sat down opposite her at the kitchen table.

"Shinji went through a lot… he kept having nightmares, first about the angels, then you for a brief period of time, then Asuka…" Misato said thinking about those first six months.

"How did he cope?" Rei said "with changing"

"You'd have to ask Shinji that one; I guess time healed his wounds for the most part" Misato leaned back and took a sip. "The problem I think was Shinji didn't know how to improve himself or something like that…like he knew all the normal stuff, but he still had a lot of emotional baggage holding him down"

"Like?"

"When he moved here, he still felt very guilty for a lot of things too, a very complex mix of emotions even I'm still working out"

"I see"

"That's why sometimes I think you two have a lot more in common now then before" Misato winked,

"I don't understand"

"Well, both of you are really the same in every respect except gender" Misato replied then lowered her voice "though with his attitude sometimes I wonder if that's a mistake"

"I still don't understand"

"It's hard to describe it" Misato stretched her drunken limits to find the right words "Shinji…knows what you're going through at the moment…because he had the same problems"

"Problems?"

"Adapting to school for example, god knows how things could've gone on if he wasn't in the same class with you" Misato said "I guess it's because he knows your problems, and he wants to help out too.

"But why does Shinji want to help me?"

Misato sighed and decided to ask a question "Rei, why do people help other people?"

"Because the former party one the latter party to have the same access, abilities and chances as the former?"

"Shinji wants you to move on, and coming from his experience in life, he would be the best person for the job" Misato replied before taking another swig at her beer.

"So, you're saying that he wants me to obtain my own life myself, and he is making sure that I don't have trouble doing so?"

"That's…sort of what I mean…" Misato had to take a minute to translate what she said. She was finding talking to Rei was something more complex then Shinji, whom until now though to be the boy with every complex emotion invented rolled into one soul. She just wasn't very good at people anymore "Rei, all I'm saying is… I think… these problems you're having…you'll get over them eventually…and Shinji is trying to make that seem as effortless as possible"

"I see…"

"Well…" Misato looked up at the wall clock and saw the time was 9:30, "I have to get Riksuto from work, so you should go to bed, and you have a big day tomorrow"

"I understand, thank you" Rei stood and closed her book "is it wise for you to be driving while intoxicated?"

"I'm fine, only one beer in the last few hours" She shook the now empty can and chucked it in the bin,

"I understand" Rei returned to her room.

Misato shrugged off the vexed feeling that she misspoke to Rei. It was hard to talk to her, and she currently regretted drinking since for any conversation with her required all her pistons running. She picked up a jacket of the rack and walked down the stairs. She wanted to give the FC another drive; it had been a lovely smooth ride. So much so that she had taken a spin out to the other side of the lake, and barely got home in time to hand the car over to Rei to do the delivery.

"Misato-san?"

"Yes Rei?"

"Can you do me a favor?" she spoke from her room

"Sure, what is it?"

"Can you try avoiding denting the car; I would like to have the car intact for my race tomorrow"

Misato shook that off as her tipsiness and wondered if Rei had just made a jab at her. She promised she wouldn't and walked out to the car. Misato sometimes wondered at the simple and strange truths about Rei, just before you thought she figured out the Albino tanned girl, she did something completely unexpected.

Upstairs, Rei unceremoniously dumped her school clothes on the floor before picking them up and putting them in a wash basket. From that she slipped on a t-shirt she had announced would be her sleepwear until she could afford proper clothing. From that, she collapsed into bed and found a comfortable position her muscles could all find relaxation before letting her breath go and looked up at the ceiling. She felt that it was invasion of sorts, it wasn't her bed, and despite it all, it was still Shinji's room.

'And tomorrow it's my turn to make sure all of Shinji's help doesn't go to waste…" Rei said as her eyes began to sink, energy was hard to find when her muscles had released the tension keeping her awake. Within minutes, Rei rolled over to her side and fell asleep.

* * *

A/N: I had a hard time working out the direction of this chapter since the last chapter really covered most of the points these two were suppose to cover. As much as everyone wants me to go and race already, I already decided when writing 15 that the next chapter will be the race itself.

And for all those Asuka fans and bashers alike, starting from the next chapter onwards, we're going to start hearing a lot more about Asuka.

NighthawkImac


	19. Episode 18: Battle! FC3S Vs R34: Part 1

After Evangelion

Episode 18: Battle! FC3S Vs GTR-34: Part 1

Rei pondered the circumstances that led up to her present situation for the thousandth time today. Her mind first thought about today; Shinji was still in coma, Misato and Riksuto were now going through all the phases of worry, and her friends had distanced themselves from her before they accidentally caused her harm. Even the weather today had been fair. Everything had given her right of passage, much to her oblivious wonderment. She hadn't felt this vexed before, not so much that her life was on the line, but the personal future of herself and Shinji was.

That's why she had found herself holding on to Shinji's now lifeless hand waiting out the time before she had to get ready to race. It felt like the wrong thing to do, Riksuto had lectured already about the fundamental requirements of rest before a race, a lesson learnt from Shinji's previous race. But she had felt, and Misato had wearily agreed; that she should see what risk she was about to undertake. Shinji had almost paid with his life, to keep a secret that somehow refused to die. So there she spent all her day, skipping school for the first since moving to Karasuyama-2, doing nothing more then stare at his closed eyes, occasionally looking out the window to the lake and see the sun arc across the sky towards the mountains in the west. But it was now three in the afternoon and finally she decided to return home.

Everything felt so different compared to this morning, the tension she expected didn't feel a sharp as Shinji had often bemoaned to experiencing prior to his race. It felt like foam, or the pleasant feeling she got last night as she snuggled against a pillow and sheets Shinji used. Part of her mind wondered if she should be worried about that, that her overt relaxation was actually making her not take the risk seriously, another part wondered again, why this was so important. Other parts of Rei's mind were wondering about many other things. Like right now the path she would take to go home. Even Rei, someone not exactly aware of her abnormality, felt that she was asking too many questions.

Walking along the hallway to the exit, Rei saw the sunset outside the doors, now coming between two distant mountains that lined the lake on the other side. There had been nothing in the way of activity at this hospital, it was a Saturday afternoon and the building wasn't Tokyo-3 general hospital. Rei hadn't talked to anyone since he had left, thus her mind was full of questions that couldn't be answered. Normally when something came to mind, she'd just ask Shinji, to who had more then once referred to Misato on some subjects like 'female' issues. The build up of questions was something that concerned her at the moment and felt like now was a good time she talk to Misato or Dr Akagi.

But weirdly enough Riksuto wasn't here. The one place one would expect to find her, she was absent. Content to ignore the problem, Rei decided to go home. A few quiet minutes later, Rei had exited the building, and using the path that Riksuto taught her, started in the direction of the park along the lake's edge. Such calm before a storm felt unnatural to anyone else, more like they would wonder if a typhoon was heading their way instead; but Rei took the logical route for someone who didn't know what that meant; she asked herself questions. Questions such as why did Ryosuke even want to expose the truth? That seemed something fundamental that had bothered her all day. Too late to ask now, but Rei didn't notice that nobody even wondered that

"Ryosuke" she caught herself saying, but before stood there another second, she continued walking.

There was a light wind in the air, and as such, silent. Normally the ambient sounds around one are mixed so the loudest sound is a great deal louder then if it were a minor noise. The brain functions in this way as to detect sudden changes in the environment. As such, the loudest noise was the waves on the beach…there really was a beach here in Karasuyama-2; something that a massive lake made possible. For this reason, it was not until Rei actually looked in that direction did she hear the mechanical sound of air being broken repeatedly and a voice repeating the same word.

"Hai!" yelled the figure on the beach, something no more then a fifty metres away "Hai! Hai!"

Rei continued to walk until she noticed that the person had a long black pony tail and wore her school uniform. While vague in the sense, Rei also noticed how tall she was relative to the scale of the school bag next to her. Rei's mind was very fast by her age's standard. So by the time she walked to the stairs that would take her down to the beach. Rei knew already who it was.

"Sakagami-san?" Rei spoke once she got close enough, and she was correct. The figure turned around from facing the lake and there Sayuri stood looking back at her.

"Ayanami-san" Sayuri lowered her…wooden sword and held it as one did when not using it. Rei hadn't really needed to guess what the stick would be, it was a kendo stick used for practicing strikes, she'd seen a couple before in the school near the dojo that it had.

"Do you live near here?" Rei's question came out, to anyone else that could've possibly sounded like the dumbest thing to say. But to Rei, logic dictated that if Sayuri wanted to practice kendo, she wouldn't want to go all the way to school for it.

"Not too far from here" Sayuri replied and then continued to answer Rei's next question "I like to practice outdoors"

"I see" Rei replied with a monotone, the type that didn't imply sarcasm or stupidity.

"You were visiting your friend?" Sayuri asked her own question, now that Rei asked two of her own.

"Yes"

"He is fine?"

That was a hard to answer question. Coma didn't quite mean recovery after all. But Rei hadn't just spent all day watching over a dying young man.

"He will recover soon"

"I see"

Sayuri wondered then why Rei had actually walked up to her, normally they would ask what she was doing and then walk away. She had then correctly summarised, looking into her eyes, what she was really thinking. Sayuri gestured with her head a direction in which there was a park bench. A minute later, both girls were sitting down and looking at the water.

"You look troubled"

"I've been asking a lot of questions" Rei replied, meaning 'yes of course'.

"These questions are about your friend?"

"Yes"

"Questions about tonight?" Sayuri didn't need to tell Rei that she knew, school students rarely kept secrets like this.

"Yes"

"What is the first question?"

Rei turned silent, not knowing why she suddenly found herself talking to someone she rarely saw, let alone speak to. Rei thought about the question, not knowing how to explain it. For the first time, she was actually confused in her own right, all afternoon she had the question in her head, but it was meant to be said to Riksuto or Misato, she hadn't mentally prepared to ready herself to tell someone else.

"I don't know the first question" Rei replied bluntly

Sayuri had noted that until this point it looked like that Rei acted like she had no feelings, it was only now that she realised that this wasn't an act, Rei honestly didn't know how to express her feelings on anything, to say the least she probably didn't understand confusion. Therefore Sayuri knew how to answer that one.

"People rarely know what question to answer first" Sayuri replied calmly, not moving another muscle except the ones that moved her mouth.

"Then where do I look?"

Several moments of silence passed before Sayuri asked that question herself, and then figured out the best way to answer, "At the start"

Rei briefly explained the situation…not that Sayuri didn't know this already. Naoko and Asisaka had already briefed her; despite the disinterested look given when they refused to stop explaining the details of a race that didn't seem to make sense. It was because of this that Sayuri organised her thoughts and clarified the details that Rei's classmates had so badly explained incorrectly. When Rei was done, Sayuri was ready to help.

"Ryosuke-sensei isn't someone to be afraid of"

"I know" Rei replied "but I don't know why he is doing this"

"He knows" Sayuri replied. In her mind, she was also in a bind, since while preparing her conclusions; she had noted with some displeasure that Rei wasn't quite telling everything to her. Because of this, she couldn't quite conclude the motive either. Sayuri didn't however see a reason to Rei lying about anything.

"Ayanami-san" Sayuri replied "Have you asked yourself the other question?"

"What question?" Rei had millions of questions actually, so what other question could it possibly be was the only thing in Rei's mind.

"Why do you have to do this thing?"

Rei didn't know, he didn't even occur to her that would be the other important question, she had known just seconds ago though the answer, but in the flood of other questions offering themselves, she had just… forgotten.

"Because…"

"Because you have to do?"

"Yes"

"Then why do you need to ask any more questions?" Sayuri replied "You've answered all of them"

"I don't understand" Rei replied, but then thought about it. Seeing the look, Sayuri didn't reply either; instead knowing that Rei was thinking about her answer. Her other questions were actually technical and literally both had nothing to do and everything to do with the topic, such as the settings for the car and how she should prepare for her race. She didn't reply for a moment, then a minute. Eventually Rei had answered them all.

"I understand" Rei eventually replied, not quite with the tone of confidence

"You're still not sure?"

"No" Rei said "I understand that my other questions have no meaning here"

"All questions have meaning" Sayuri replied, getting off the bench, grabbing her bag and training sword "there is just a time for you ask them… and a time for when they become important"

"I see" Rei asked

"Ayanami-san" Sayuri looked back at her… friend "don't answer them all at once, you don't know the answer yet"

With that, Sayuri walked away, with nothing approaching a farewell. In a moment, Rei found herself sitting alone watching the waves at the beach. For a moment her mind wondered towards the mountains in the distance. But before her mind could begin thinking of something new, it returned to the question of tonight, she saw the sun setting, she needed to return home to get ready.

* * *

Inside his mind, in the deeper recesses of space where medical instruments failed to probe, Shinji was all alone. He was still in coma, on the 4th floor of the Karasuyama-2 General medical hospital, but his soul felt like he was in the coldest, furthest reaches of space. He knew he had been here before, well, somewhere like here. The sky was a dark red, the colour of LCL on a sunset or dawn. It always had an odd colour, and at times to look like blood always seemed to be those times of the day.

Shinji had commented at length now about how lonely this space was. It wasn't because of any reason; it was because he lacked an imagination to create something that looked better. This background always seemed to be present during nightmares; and it had taken him fully a day to realise that he hadn't seen it since that last dream a year or so ago. Again, he tried to remember, Shinji tried to replay it in his head; but it was always so hard to outline her.

"Didn't think I'd see you again so soon" spoke the gentle, if somewhat mildly sarcastic feminine voice.

"Who is it?"

Shinji turned around 180 degrees, but didn't see anyone.

"I didn't think you were quite the popular person to haunt" the voice continued to jest "do you have to ask who it is?"

"Asuka…"

The girl then touched him on the back "it really has been awhile hasn't it"

Shinji had encountered Asuka in a dream once before, in fact for almost every night for around several months. Shinji had vividly remembered those dreams, for about 3 months they were a nightly occurrence. Upon his arrival to Karasuyama-2, Shinji was suffering a mental breakdown, which had resulted in a string of nightmares every night for 6 weeks. She had been the first dream in a year; and the first time in many months where Shinji woke up refreshed. She had explained her mission clearly; her real life counterpart had tried to help him in the past, but was just too scared to try. So it was her inner mind's turn to help.

It had started out shakily enough; Shinji was far too use to the counterpart Asuka's inherent violent nature to believe it wasn't some really sick sort of nightmare. But walls came down over time and Shinji had started to enjoy chatting to this more subtle and relaxed version of the German adolescent he remembered in real life. She had resolved a lot of issues for Shinji by merely advising her…usually in a sadistic, cryptic way. As well as of course punishing him for being unable to do it himself. Over time, Shinji had fallen in love with this Asuka, even if it was something only in a dream, and in return for the guided trust and admiration, she had helped Shinji recover from the mental anguish that coveted his time at NERV and all the horrible stuff that happened in his time in Tokyo-3.

It was something that didn't make sense the one time he had explained it to Misato; but it was the real reason why he had recovered. A little angel had spoken to him, comforted him and retaught him. Shinji had applied the lessons Asuka had taught him through his unconscious states and she continued to brag and harass when he failed and smiled at him when he succeeded. He couldn't lie, it was as if she knew anyway, which didn't surprise him all that much; it reminded Shinji of the real Asuka, how she had been then and now.

When things started to piece together in Shinji's life, Asuka started appearing less and less. Resulting in several times where he felt a loneliness not talking to her again, confusion and anxiety, from no longer asking advice. Asuka said she didn't have to worry about him anymore. Because by this point, he had overcome the social problems in moving to this small town and he had finally established a firm grip in his new home with Misato. Asuka told him that he couldn't rely on her forever, since she had to consul and keep her counterpart self up as well…more then once Shinji wondered how a subconscious moved around.

Eventually one cool April evening as the cherry blossoms petals were blowing in the gentle evening breeze, Asuka had said goodbye for the final time. Shinji wondered why of all the dreams with her, it was the last, and he thought; most important one he had the one he couldn't remember real well. All he could remember were those last words spoken by her soft lips: 'We'll talk again someday, have a wonderful life until then Shinji-kun'

Such words had sounded like a poet's dying breath, but Shinji was a little too emotionally weak to believe such words, what it meant was that he would have to wait until his last breath before she could even touch her again. Since that day, Shinji had put a photograph that Misato had still from their bad old days and framed it, and to this day…until a month ago, had made a point to see it at least once a day. Misato had often interrupted the gesture as a confession of love, never accepting an explanation otherwise.

As she embraced him from behind; Shinji felt the temperature drop for some reason and suddenly the background got darker. At the same time his body started to illuminate the space, now the surroundings wasn't the marble colours of LCL at dawn. Now it was nothing but almost pitch black dark emptiness that described his feelings before, filled with little pin lights that felt like hundreds of thousands of millennia away; it was the best description to describe exiting the universe.

"Shinji-kun" the voice from behind him spoke, it was a sensual voice, it was sweet, but it sounded like one that had been worn out as well, from a tiring soul.

"You're back?" he didn't move until felt the soft impact of the body hugging his body, the soft skin rubbing against his naked back and the quick look of the top of the hair told him all he ever needed to know.

"I guess you forgot our little deal" Asuka whispered into his ear, cooing every word with assurance, "We'd talk again someday…"

* * *

With the application of her jacket to body, she was ready to leave. Rei looked at…well really at nowhere except into space, her mind had continued to ask questions despite the advice from Sayuri that the questions would all be answered as they became important. Around in her room…she had started to think of it as such was as neatly kept as its other occupant kept it. On the bed however was the used uniform of the day, the navy blue and green lined top and white scarf and skirt, along with her undergarments ceremoniously dumped there for later disposal to the laundry basket.

What she was wearing was on her bed when she got home inside a paper wrapped bag from Misato, inside was black trousers, an aqua-blue cotton top with long sleeves and a black jacket. It had been recognised after a fashion that Rei didn't have any clothes except for house clothes that clearly showed signs of age. So it had been decided by the owner of this residence to purchase her some real civil clothing for the first time in Rei's life.

Nobody was home when Rei returned from her day time to see Shinji, Misato having decided to not at all try intimidated her from failure. As a result, Rei had taken the time without talk to think clearly. The long shower helped, so did staring in the mirror as she dried of. So did her look around the house to see what an impact Shinji made when he wasn't here…the kitchen was beyond use and the living space resembled Misato's room. Somehow that didn't seem to hit it home until she slipped her new clothes on, something that emotions from anyone else would relate as touching. To Rei these feelings came across as confusing, but she was sure that gratitude was the on she was suppose to feel.

She walked over to the desk where still lying underneath in a neat pile were the manga books that Rei had read for her first couple of weeks in town. The pile had been reduced in height since the little problem with the material had been discovered, but Rei was sure that Hikaru would one day explain the reasons behind that. On the desk was that laptop that Shinji never really used. And beside it the wrapping and box for the new watch she was now wearing. It had been on top of the bag, and she had put it on first, even before putting her undergarments on. Some senseless logic didn't tell her to just put the watch to one side and dress first.

Rei walked out of the room, actually ignoring her chore of putting her clothes in the wash basket and walked to the kitchen table. There among other things like the newspapers for the last weeks were her car keys; a single key and a keychain with the word 'Rei' written on simple piece of paper laminated. Without thinking another moment, she took the keys and walked downstairs. From the bottom flight, she took the house keys off the hook and closed the door. Walking around the shop floor of the building, she exited out the back door and saw her car. It'd been parked there where she arrived home, but it felt more real now that she would go to battle with it.

Painted a chrome silver, the car looked as sleek as its original design must've looked when it appeared in the early 1980's, the stock standard spoiler that came with this version of the RX-7 was installed now, painted jet black. The wheels looked practically brand new, but with enough signs that they had been worn in enough to not give her trouble. On further inspection, Sosuske had even installed fog lights on the underside and replaced the headlights with new ones. Rei didn't take in the sight as much as others would have, but she did take a second to stare at it…gratitude again peaked through her mind as the emotion that one would feel.

Getting in the car, she felt the differences, the car felt brand new. Rei recognised then that Sosuske was one hell of miracle worker to even get this car up to scratch in a week. Her experience in his MX-5 had helped her easing in. turning it over, the engine came to life, the gauges for fuel, RPM and temp all flared for a second before retaining their correct readings. She noted at once the engine was making a better noise then it usually did when it idled. This was masterfully well done…this car, Rei's notions of what to expect from it had all disappeared when she first saw it, and her fears of technically challenges…were they actually gone? She didn't know how good Ryosuke's car was, too good maybe.

"Shinji…" she quietly whispered for the first time, Rei thought about what kind of thoughts her roommate would thinking up at a time like this. When her mind had exhausted the ideas, she put the FC into gear and slowly crept out of the driveway. Careful as to not scratch the paint, she slowly moved down the narrow street towards cherry blossom avenue.

* * *

"So what brought you here?" Shinji had some random idea that the only time she'd talk to him was after he died, so it was of no surprise that his question was delivered with the tone of worry.

"Well, I kind of noticed that you were in coma…and that it might be nice for once to get out and get a change of scenery" Asuka replied in a sly cryptic way

"This is your idea of a change of scenery?" Shinji observed the dark space surrounding them

"Not my fault you don't have an imagination" Asuka sighed "let me pick something out for you"

The area surrounding them suddenly changed and Shinji also found himself glowing brightly. In an instant he found himself clothed, and holding… car keys. The area suddenly materialised around him as the interior of his black Trueno.

"Shinji, you ever felt like upgrading to something… say a Ferrari, or something at least looks like it goes fast?" Asuka asked before asking "want to go for a drive?"

Before Shinji got his bearings straight, she spoke again. " and go the other way"

"Why?"

Shinji recalled from his memory where the road went beyond the usual starting line… up to another lake, a small one that had a dam which held back a creek flowing from it, it eventually lead down to the one by Karasuyama-2. From his memory, kayakers went up there to go down the creek.

"I don't need to see your impressive skills already; I can see they almost killed you once"

"Right" Shinji put the car into gear and turned the car around, a moment later he was on his way, going away from his home.

* * *

Rei parked her car next Sosuske's MX-5 and Kensuke's AE-92. Almost everyone she knew was there. Shinji had once told her that the nervous moments came just before the race. It perhaps described the feelings of questionable fear that Rei felt, but could not explain away. The fear of the unknown was always a fundamentally sound thing to fear; but for some reason she didn't really care for it until now.

"Are you alright?" Misato first asked

"Yes" Rei replied

"Did the car ride alright?"

"Yes"

"Are you feeling well?"

"Yes"

"Are you sure you want to do this?"

"Yes"

"Are you sure you are okay?"

"Yes"

Standing over about five metres away, Riksuto and Sosuske stood their in some embarrassment as their saw Misato doting on Rei like a concerned mother watching her daughter perform her first ballet performance. Riksuto was held reckonable for keeping Misato's mind off annoying Rei. Going for a drive in Sosuske's MX-5 didn't really solve matters, all it had done was compress this display of stupidity into a five minute burst.

"Misato, I think she is quite fine" Riksuto told Misato under a face palm of utter embarrassment. That at least thirty people were nearby and only the sound of car engines being revved was what saved them from looking at Misato "now will you get it together, last time you were here, you were the race mistress or something"

"Alright" Misato closed her eyes and composed herself "let's go"

They walked over to a set of skylines, Misato knew which one she was looking for, parked there next to a tent… a new thing she noted was that several tents were up; this was turning into a real event. Standing their talking to some racers was Keiichi Yamazaki.

"Misato!" he almost yelled as he saw the woman and her accompanying party.

"Keiichi-san" Misato replied curtly "you're in good health"

"That's true" Keiichi spoke before turning serious "and Shinji?" he knew the story already and the tone indicated to Misato that everyone here knew, adding at the end "I saw the video as well"

"Coma, but he'll wake up eventually" Misato replied, "I'm sure you know the arrangement I have with someone then"

"I do" Keiichi replied just a curtly, but indicating clear disgust at how the topic turned from hello to this in only so many lines "I hope you are ready for him, who is your replacement driver?"

"Rei!" Misato turned and called out for her new driver, Rei without thought walked forward and silently stood there when she was in front of Keiichi. Her quiet demeanour, not even a greeting surprised him; but the light wind gave her cold hard stare an extra effect of giving her shoulder length blue-silver hair the correct amount of depth that Keiichi needed to see in her eyes. Without even ever seeing her drive, except with the video that Sosuske had provided of the crash…he could see it in her.

"You're pretty good at picking drivers Katsuragi-san" he replied with formal approval "but for your sake, I hope she is up to it"

"I'm sure of it"

It wasn't from Misato's lips, and that was what made her so surprised. Instead it came from Rei who kept her stare at this man. The moment of single defiance from Rei's new personality was gone when a familiar voice spoke,

"Wow, and here I am expecting you guys to just leave without a race" Standing there, by his car was Ryosuke looking back at the party of people.

It took Riksuto a second…no a nano second, even less maybe of a look at Ryosuke before a sudden chill came, one that somehow managed to remain ignorant to the deeper recesses of her mind, one that her mind couldn't have possibility thought of until this point. Even the idea of it hadn't occurred, but right there and then, Riksuto knew…she knew why Ryosuke was out for them.

"Nice to see again Rei…by the way Misato, you and I need to talk about her grades at some point" Ryosuke walked "or are you her guardian, Doctor Akagi?"

Both women stared blankly at Ryosuke, ignoring the rebuke.

"And you must be Sosuske" he laughed "man I can't believe it's been a year since we met.

This illicit a surprise from Misato and Riksuto, Ryosuke caught their looks and played with it The presence of Misato whom every racer local knew was becoming a normal event, but seeing her getting talked at by this guy had focused attention on them.

"You didn't know? Sosuske and I go way back…way back to when he was still racing"

"You got a reason to brag before the race even begins?" Keiichi spoke up as he entered the conversation

"Yeah well, I could talk to mute here, but she isn't listening" Ryosuke gestured to Rei. The silence that followed only underlined the arrogance that line emitted. Rei however stood their unaffected. It actually annoyed Ryosuke given that not once in his time with her had he been able to get a reaction from her.

"Speechless Rei?" Ryosuke spoke, "you really are a doll aren't you?"

The words could've by anyone else snapped them to punch the guy in the face, but Rei's idea of response was probably the wisest crack and most well timed reply that could've been conceived by her. Because of that, Misato, Riksuto, Sosuske and even Keiichi were all surprised when her voice was heard.

"Dolls don't drive cars" Rei replied in a cool, almost monotone, but a tone of sarcasm in her reply "and even dolls would learn to ignore you"

The tension that statement caused utterly befuddled Misato's brain, she had seen some really weird stuff, but Rei owning out Ryosuke on the subject he best not have brought up. Being called a doll had been the final straw for Rei, her anger as it was lit up. Her mind was now very educated on ignoring that certain insult, but it was enough to make her react. Outside though, her demeanour didn't change; cool and organized. If calling her a doll was supposes to unbalance her in any way, it failed.

"Lets get your race started" Keiichi spoke, breaking the ice solid tension,

Both of them nodded, Ryosuke then opened the car door and got in, a second later he was moving slowly to the end of the stretch. Rei stood there for a moment before turning around and starting her walk to her own car, as she passed Misato's right side, she stopped for a moment, she whispered a brief sentence.

"I won't forgive him" her whisper rasped quietly into Misato's ears and then she continued walking away, now ignoring her surroundings.

Rei got into her FC and closed the door. For a moment she did nothing, her mind ticking over a few new questions. Sayuri was right, only when the question became important did it get answered. Once she had answered those new questions; Rei turned the key over on her car and creep forward, past Misato and Riksuto and towards the start line.

Everyone focused their attention as they saw the silver FC go down to the start line and meet up with the midnight black GTR-34 parked on the other lane. The sides of the road were lined with people, and all the way down the course, people were notified that a race began.

* * *

Halfway down at the S curve at the end of the straightway; Kensuke, Toji and Hikaru all looked long sightedly into the distance watching for activity. Naoko was watching the trio; her knowledge of events made her see the three in a different way now. Before it didn't matter, during school today it didn't matter, and ever since they were told, it didn't matter, but right now it did…she could tell that each one had the tension to break steel cables.

"Are they going to be alright?" Naoko quietly asked herself

Further down the road at the large S section where Shinji had crashed, Asisaka was with Kazuma, whom was inadvertently joined by Takashi and Touya by chance. It had taken some permission from Sosuske, but he gave permission for Kazuma to drive with him to that part.

"So this is where he lost it" Touya noted the clean steel plates indicating that the guardrails had been replaced already.

"Isn't this where Shinji beat you?" Kazuma asked

"Something like that" Takashi answered for his colleague "the cornering of the 86 is suited for this part of the course"

"What about an FC?" Asisaka asked,

"I'd love to know that too, the video didn't show us if Rei could clear it at high speed"

"But she did the time Sosuske rode with her in the MX-5"

"The two cars have different setups" Takashi replied "FC isn't really designed for easy consecutive cornering in any case…only a really skilled driver can overcome that shortcoming"

"But what if she just drives disregard the different in cars?" Asisaka wondered aloud,

The looks from the other three were of dumfounded confusion.

* * *

Both FC and GTR were on the starting line, the radio check was about to be completed, indicating that the course was completely clear of traffic. This did indeed take time as radio checking still needed an improved method of communication. Misato had wondered how that was all done, but didn't think right now was the time to work out a better way. Standing next to Keiichi who was next to the radioman, both of them essentially had the best information in the house.

"Something irks me about Ryosuke" Keiichi said "any normal race, if you refused to race him, he just called you a coward; I wonder what made him so desperate to race you guys"

"I don't know" Misato shrugged, but quickly swivelled her head to Riksuto when she spoke,

"Revenge" Riksuto sighed as she rubbed the upper part of her nose and walked away from the group.

"What is she talking about?" Keiichi asked

"I have no idea either" Misato looked just as surprised as Keiichi,

"We're about to start!" came the voice from the start line; with that, everyone gathered to the start to watch the cars.

Inside the FC, Rei was really thinking now, asking and answering questions at a rate not quite normal for a human. Rei could not recall the exact feeling, but one came to mind every time…here she was, in the cockpit seat of this car, about to do battle with the black car that almost killed Shinji. It was like battle…an angel battle. Her mind rebelled at the concept, indicating that these were vastly different scenarios. The enemy was human, the car didn't have weapons, the course was the enemy, and she didn't need to kill anyone.

Shinji would've said that all she had to do was relax; as such, Rei made the mental effort to calm down. It took a moment and then she felt some sort of sublime comfort, she felt that it was maybe the air-conditioning on or the seat she was in giving her the relief.

"Cars ready!" spoke the guy standing in the middle of the road, Rei recalled during the last race she saw, that the entire race was done this way, a starting countdown followed by a stop start. So she needed to be ready to go at the moment he said zero. Fair enough, that would just require some timing. She had ten seconds of it to get her pacing right.

"10! 9! 8! 7!"

In the opposite car, Ryosuke took a final look at his opponent's car; he was rather surprised it wasn't painted pure white and gold that had been the colour her Evangelion was mainly painted up as. He supposed that Silver was supposed to be a Reimaging or some useless crap. He wasn't concerned, his midnight black GTR would wipe the floor of the FC next too him, and the moment he got to the bottom, he had the number of a reporter from Tokyo-2 on his phone ready to talk to him.

"6! 5! 4! 3!"

In her own car, Rei flexed her left hand over the gear stick, having already released the parking brake; she was now lightly taping the accelerator. She didn't know why she was so edge now doing that, but Rei remembered that she was pacing herself in time with the countdown. It was too late to turn back was her final thought; from this moment onwards it was to outrace this other car.

"2! 1!" the announcer yelled "Go!!!"

At once, both FC and GTR simultaneously floored their engines to unleash the horsepower inside; catapulting their cars with forward momentum and accelerating. The movement only lasted a few second before both cars were beyond the main crowd and continuing to accelerate towards the first corner. Despite her pacing, it was Ryosuke who had the inner side to begin with who would take the lead. Rei had to pace herself, following her memory on what to do, right now her mind was telling her no to contest the first corner.

All at once Ryosuke hit his brakes and started turning, unlike the lighter FC, the GTR had persuado 4WD control and as such didn't really need to drift to pass corners quickly. Its simple computer helped control the ABS brakes and steering control to work into a fast corner such as the first once and get away cleanly without a great loss in speed. Usually this is called grip driving, the exact counterpart to the drifting style that Rei adopted from Shinji.

"Ryosuke has the lead!"

It was clearly obvious to anyone who watched that, the midnight black GTR was now ahead by a little margin, but not enough to make that surprising, the FC was right on his tail, maybe three metres behind keeping a distance. If Ryosuke felt that she could be lost this quickly in the game, he would quickly learn different. The next corner was coming up; a medium speed hairpin. Rei noted something rather odd here. For all the talk she had learnt about the GTR, why was Ryosuke breaking so early into the corner? It was at least a second before she had to brake. Her initial thought was because he gripped his tires on corners, the different approach that the GTR had on this sort of driving maybe.

But somehow that didn't quite answer the question to why he was slower at entry. When they both exited the hairpin; in her mind, Rei started counting. The number of seconds from when the car braked compared to when she had to. Her problem was she needed to maintain a small distance from Ryosuke, but the style he adopted meant that her braking had to be…slower. Odd, was it just now that she noticed that? Coming up the next signpost, she mentally recalled the last time she was in the FC…the day of the crash and Shinji entered the corner…there at the sign post. Rei started counting the moment Ryosuke's brake lights engaged and turned into the corner…she got to 2 seconds before about the time where Shinji would've done the same and where she would've done the same.

Maybe it was because the 86 was a smaller car and had a better turning radius? That didn't explain how she hit the brakes at the right time and got the same result. Her car and Ryosuke's were the same size roughly, and the same sort of power range. Inside, Rei's calculator and timer started thinking, in three corners done so far, had she been in front, they would be a total of maybe...1 second ahead by now. The fact that Rei could do this math in her head and still drive would have mind boggled anyone else. But to her she didn't see the problem.

The fourth corner was a high speed, not a lot of cornering needed. It was here that Rei saw the GT-R's cornering improve; he had almost the same amount of speed and timing as Shinji would in the 86; as such there was no lost time. Rei thought about the data collected so far. Already he was behind, despite having the lead. She didn't know what to say.

* * *

"Hey Riksuto" Misato asked "what did you mean by revenge?"

Both Sosuske and Keiichi turned their head to look at the two women as Misato said that. Riksuto silently cursed her friend's inability to be discreet; gestured for her to follow her instead, Sosuske would probably understand, but the gesture confused Keiichi. Without further prompting, the two started to take a walk.

The area was alive with activity and the noise of engines being tested almost made talking to Misato hard. But they eventually found a place they could hear each other and still retain walking pace, as to not attract attention.

"A couple of years ago when I was still working for the_ firm_" the term didn't need expectation, both knew she was referring to NERV "we hired a computer technician to work on some of the basic systems with the plug suit. Anyway this technician was rather annoying to work with, a fresh graduate who just came out of Tokyo-2 University for computer studies"

"Why is it that I don't like where this is going?" Misato said already getting it,

"This young man kept bugging me and the staff for better work and after awhile we decided that making comments on amplifying the chest section was not making our task of making our prototype tester...comfortable"

"So you sacked him?"

"Reassigned…I gave him a job fixing the swipe card readers at the entrances" Riksuto replied "he singularly failed at this job, breaking more then he fixed, after which I had him sacked"

"So that was that?" Misato spoke "he is getting back at you…"

"He was one of those people you forget in a hurry" Riksuto defended herself, "I had it fixed up that he returned to Tokyo-2 and stopped bothering us"

"So why did he come here? How did he know?"

"Seems that he knew somehow, or he just randomly got assigned to here, who knows" Riksuto replied "anyway, that's probably the reason, I got him sacked, and he's trying to get even"

"Then why you didn't realise it was Ryosuke before?" Misato asked

"Do you know how many Ryosuke's I know?" Riksuto asked "and how the hell was I suppose to recognise the guy, I didn't even see his face until ten minutes ago"

Misato sighed and recognised that the truth in that statement, there was nothing that could be done now. With that, both of them returned to where the other two males were standing.

* * *

"This is quite a place you've settled down in" Asuka brushed her hair back as she spoke,

Both teenagers were walking along the pier by the lake. Shinji couldn't quite remember the name of the lake. He could see all the boats tied up by the berths and jetties that populated the shoreline, along with the empty shops that opened up on the weekends along with the dozen houses that populated the area. The absence of people made it feel strange, though not terribly unusual, it was still strange for absolute silence on a bright sunny day.

"You never said that before" Shinji replied

"I guess a couple of months going to city to city can make you think about setting yourself down somewhere" Asuka smiled, again in a cryptic way

"How is Asuka...I mean the real you…doing?"

"You really want to ask me that?" she sighed, "I'm pretty sure there are more interesting things going on in your life that I'd like to know about"

"Like?"

"How is school? How is work? How is life with Misato?" Asuka got up and talked down at him, some angry that she needed to spell it out "I think your living with Rei now aren't you?"

"Everything is fine…I mean I have this problem right now, but…"

"What problem is that?"

"You see, I have this teacher at school…"

"Oh the Ryosuke thing…" Asuka resumed walking beside him "I guess that was going to be a problem for you"

"Then you know what is going on there" Shinji sighed as they reached the end of the pier. He thought about it all for a moment and decided that he had to ask the question. There just didn't seem to be a reason for sudden appearance here at all. Asuka knew about his problems. Then again there was not really much in the way of news in his life. So why now, just under a year since she last talked to him did Asuka's inner self suddenly decide to visit.

* * *

"Why did you really come here?"

Amazingly, Rei only realised that they were only a third of the way down the course when her mind finally caught up. All the way so far, her mind was an atomic clock, keeping track of the timing between corners, and then calculating the difference between her and Ryosuke… then comparing Ryosuke's timing to Shinji. All in all, this was the work of a computer, but somehow she was keeping up, studying her opponents' movement carefully.

She couldn't quite work out the reasons behind it except…something was not right. The logic behind her driving was imitative, she copied Shinji's path whenever she drove behind him. Using him as the standard, Rei had setup a positive scale to rate Ryosuke and herself. Right now Rei found it that she was frustrating slower then usual, already five or six seconds slower, and it was because she was following this GT-R. Her questions started from there; that being why was he slower? The abilities of the car exceeded hers and maybe Shinji's in cornering on fast corners where the grip drifting was at its best.

But still it felt like he wasn't going fast enough, his brake times was very poor, sometimes he started his braking at least 3 seconds before Rei would, instead she had to brake and follow him around the corner. Rei felt there was something seriously wrong here. The only two answers to the original questions was, one that he was unfamiliar with the course. That made sense, Ryosuke had roughly the same amount of time on here to practice as Rei did, however Rei was doing very well during practice to keep up to Shinji.

The other was technique, the likely answer. For a car with as good braking as a GT-R…at least according to Sosuske's explanations; why was it feeling so slow. Probability was Ryosuke was conservative…maybe. But one didn't do that by going slowly, at least according to Sosuske and Shinji, Shinji was for the most part a slow driver. Driving into a corner just now, all he did was keep to the inner edge of the curve and kept slowing down until he exited, after which he used the engine to boost him along. All the while, Rei was starting to get…annoyed was the emotion she thought it was, that her driving had to be blocked by this car that kept forcing her to slow down.

"This is frustrating" Rei said aloud, actually surprised she did it, returning to thought after that 'is it just me or is Ryosuke unable to take high speed corners?'

The two cars entered a small straightway, it was here that the two cars could open up their range a bit, initially the GTR-34 leapt forward and opened some space; but Rei followed on in short order, catching up by the time they entered the corner. Rei speculated that if the straightway had been longer, she would have been able to at least go side by side with Ryosuke into the corner, If not quite taking the lead as least tried to.

The braking technique was on par with Rei, even less then Rei it seems and it was starting to get annoying, she couldn't take him on the outside, the power advantage of the GTR at the exit would make it hard to keep the lead. What kept the FC in advantage was the turn in speed, though right now Rei was not able to do anything more then stay on his tail. Trying to drift, trying to keep balance, all the while getting distracted by the slow pace the GTR was doing. Entering a small straightway again, Rei saw the distance open again.

Rei felt like overtaking, but there was no gap. With the car doing this slow cornering which made her slow down a bit, with the acceleration of the GT-R out of corners Rei needed an opening. A straightway long enough to catch up and get the inside of the road before turning.

'I need a gap…a hole...' Rei thought to herself, hopelessly getting stuck braking at the slow speed 'I need to make my attack at the long straightway'

* * *

A/N: I'm not going to lie; this chapter was overdue to be done. In July of last year I had committed myself to finishing my studies (which I did) and eventually get back to this. In December I opened up this file and then I recognized where I got stuck in the first place. Even with all the cliché I'm trying avoid, I still can't help but think the first scene with Sayuri and Rei is a tad overdone or cheesy. From the beginning I wanted this scene to include Sayuri, but everything I did just kept sounding corny or Mary Sue'ish. At the end, I came up with a solution that I was okay with, so I hope you'll understand how careful I try to do certain things.

For the people asking about Asuka, she is finally back...after a fashion. In all honesty, I probably wouldn't have come up with this idea before chapter 15 had I decided to ride off Shinji from this race. Trust me, if I skipped the entire arc after episode 9, she would've been here by now, and I would've had issues with it since it would have been too sudden. Anyway, I'm writing episode 19, or part 2 to race now and I don't expect to run into anymore problems.

A/N 2: at the notifcation of DrendeSalkash, I've gone through and fixed Ritsuko's name.

Nighthawk_Imac


	20. Episode 19: Battle! FC3S Vs R34: Part 2

After Evangelion

Episode 19: Battle! FC3S Vs GTR-34: Part 2

"I guess that wasn't exactly something I could keep quiet forever" she replied with some depressed relief "I guess coma was all too convenient a reason to come visit about this"

"Come on, the cat is out of the bag" Shinji replied "why are you really here?"

Both of them were sitting down at the end of the pier, looking off towards the mountain towering at the other end of the lake. Asuka had quietly hoped to try distracting herself from the topic a little longer and continuing with the niceties of talking with Shinji about his life.

"The problem is, if I even say anything… you're going it instantly react"

"Is Asuka in trouble?" Shinji almost got up from his seat, but was stopped by the hand,

"See? I haven't even told you and you're reacting. Despite being in coma" Asuka sighed and grabbed him to sit down again "I guess its trouble…after a fashion"

"Is she in danger?"

"I wouldn't say danger…" she replied "but she is certainly going that way by the things she is doing now"

"Aren't you her inner soul or something?" Shinji replied "aren't you suppose to try making her avoid things like that?"

"I'm her inner conscience, not her damn inner soul" Asuka angrily corrected Shinji, for what must've been the thousandth time he had to correct that minor misdemeanor.

Shinji had never quite understood the entire logic behind this, being he never quite recalled ever meeting his conscience in any dream, and then how was Asuka getting herself between him and her? She'd once explained the details, but it came down to some sort of spiritual channel or something…Shinji couldn't remember the exact details or understood the logic and as to why he saw Asuka's conscience in Asuka's psychical form. In the end he managed to get a headache and passed on the explanation. How it happened, he didn't care, if it was just his own mental problems playing kitsune style tricks on him, then he had to admit they were pretty good at solving his real life problems.

"Then if you're her conscience, what's the problem?"

"I think it's a pretty obvious one" Asuka sighed, was Shinji having a momentary case of the stupid? "How often do you think she even listens to me? I'm no smarter then her sometimes, but I at least have common sense to not lie to myself"

"Lying?"

"Back during the Evangelion days…she did it all the time…" Asuka sighed, regretting having said that already. She'd forgotten how stupid Shinji could be when he had the whim to ask questions

"Then why are you here now?"

She sighed "I'm really just lucky you're in coma so I've got the chance to fly here and talk to you while you have so much free time"

Shinji felt that statement was a little two sarcastic for the moment, but he wisely decided that maybe she was just having a bad day; not that Shinji could understand how conscience could have bad days, but that was beside the point. Asuka was annoyed with herself, being stuck with her real life counterpart's habits of holding off being blunt.

"What are you asking…"

Asuka turned around to face him and started to lay down her request "back when you needed help, it was me who got you out of your mess…And now its time you helped me"

* * *

"Corner 34 here!" the radio chirped

"What is it 34?" Keiichi picked up the radio off the hood of his car and listened in.

"They just past us, that FC is holding its own; she is sticking to the butt of the 34!"

"Anything else?" Keiichi

"Nothing really, just that Ryosuke is really taking it easy, he seems more concerned about blocking then actually speed"

"Damn" the local drift king replied "alright, thanks for your work, what is the current time?"

Misato and Ritsuko heard the cursing from where they were standing and decided to walk over to the car. She hadn't noticed it before but there was a large map, about the size of a fold out tourist one that was the devil to fold back into place. On it was a bunch of circles and notations on yellow stick note paper next to each one.

"This is quite an elaborate setup" Ritsuko noted, clearly interested in meeting someone who was crazy about recording data as she was.

"We sometimes remember to bring the map" Keiichi noted with some humor "it's helpful in keeping track of times"

"I can see that" Misato replied "so what was the 'damn' about" During the time Misato spoke, Sosuske walked over and joined the group, another racer who was keeping the official stopwatch made way for him.

"Is Ryosuke playing mind games again?" Sosuske asked. There was no point in denying he raced before, even Keiichi had known a bit about his race. He had been surprised that the two women didn't know.

"What mind games?" Misato being an expert on them asked.

"Ryosuke's playing his old technique" Keiichi replied with some frustration "he must really want to win this one…"

While Misato was asking her initial questions, Ritsuko looked down at the yellow markings, indicating at corner 26 and 34 the times that were written down it took a second before she noticed it and said "Misato, take a look at the times"

"They are…7 seconds slower then Shinji!" Misato was reading the latest time from corner 34, "I don't understand…what is the whole mind game about?"

"It's an elegant trap actually…" Sosuske started to translate for the two novices "Ryosuke can if he want go a lot faster then this, he knows that and he can"

"Then why isn't he?"

"He doesn't have to" Keiichi replied and continued on "this section of the course isn't really wide, so trying to make a overtake is hard to being with…so in Ryosuke's case, why go all out? He knows that going at 80% is sufficient for the task since he took the lead, the FC is too big length wise to overtake in the corners if he is grip driving, so he has a perfect blocking position"

"But how is going slow a mind game?"

"When you're following someone, you tend to get trapped following his line" Sosuske explained "because it's narrow and Rei can't overtake...all she can do is follow, what you end up doing is copying the speed and turning as the leader"

"So she is forced to go at his pace" Misato asked, "then why can't she just overtake him on these straight-ways?" Misato pointed at two small lines on the map indicating points that the course allowed a straight path.

"She can't because the race is also being controlled at the same speed as the leader" Keiichi continued to explain "Ryosuke's speed range must low. Low enough that he can still take full advantage of the power of the GT-R's engine and get more boost on exiting the corner than compared to the FC"

"The FC's 13B engine has a slower rate of acceleration at slower speeds compared to the R-34's RB26. Ryosuke's cornering speed insures that the FC has to loose power as they enter the corner…" Keiichi replied "at the exit, the GTR has faster acceleration, but the FC can still catch up in a short period of time, just these straightway are not long enough to let Rei try to overtake, not when she has to first regain the power"

"So he is blocking her and forcing her to stay at lower speeds?"

"In a very basic sense" Sosuske replied "the important thing is the mental effect on the driver though"

"I don't get that part" Ritsuko spoke "Rei's driving habit imitates usually, but she also is pretty good at detecting certain things like how much time has passed, wouldn't she know they are going slower?"

"that's the thing" Keiichi started "novice drivers get it mainly, but you can start to get frustrated when you're stuck behind a slower driver and you cant overtake him because the ability to is limited"

"…and it becomes frustrating to the driver" Ritsuko started to figure it out "you would start to ask why he is slow, then why you try to look for a reason why, and if you know for a fact that you are going slower… it starts to distract you"

"Exactly…" Sosuske said, finally glad that at least the doctor got it "Rei might be good, but no amount of practice can overcome being distracted like that"

"Ryosuke's whole technique was never about being faster" Keiichi finished the explanation, glad to see that the two women were smart enough to understand it, which was a lot could be said compared to some novices "he knows he cant win when they take the lead…he has to take the lead first, then all he has to do is wear down the mental capacity of his driver in the early stages of the race"

"…make it harder for them to reply, then later on, when the time for overtaking is possible, the driver's concentration is already heavily depleted…that's why he was so desperate to get the lead at the start" Ritsuko finished the explanation

"Is there a way for her to recover?" Misato asked, now getting it as well

"There is…" Keiichi looked down on the map "there is one stretch on the entire course where Rei can recover herself, after which the road is wider and her ability to overtake is much better"

"But the straightway, won't the GT-R just pull away like you said?"

"No… at this length, the FC can catch up, the heavier body of the GT-R doesn't let the boost it gets from the engine last very long. The FC can catch up half way…here" Sosuske pointed to the intersection that lead to the hot springs resort that Chisame ran "all Rei needs to do is get the inside, and enter the corner at least ahead of his rear wheels"

"But you said her concentration would be flat, can she pull it off in only half the straightway?" Misato asked worried,

"We'll know soon enough" Keiichi replied.

* * *

For such a short time, it felt like hours had passed. Rei's mind was ticking away the real time by cautiously checking the clock on her dashboard when she got the chance. Somehow the realism of relativity seemed to cross into the metal boundary and continued to befuddle the brain. The frustration felt, the tension, and the on going process of thoughts in Rei's mind was starting to strain her, what was worse was she needed a release from this soon or her concentration would snap in short order. One cannot concentrate continuously and expect to function as one did at the start of the race. Even as one got into the groove, their senses were numbed down as fatigue set in.

Rei knew it, and was now waiting for the relief, which she now knew lay in the straightway up ahead in a couple of corners from now. What she needed was to figure out some questions. Why did it feel like Ryosuke was driving slowly on purpose? Was it to mess her up? Was it not a trick; was it because of his inexperience on the course and the limitations of the car? So many questions kept popping into her mind, filling the hopper that could process them, but only when she didn't have to make decisive drifts to keep up and match her opponent. Rei felt confused and frustrated, the only two things she could really believe she was feeling, confused; at the real intentions of the driver ahead of him, and the mental whiplash of not being able to drive at full force.

'There has to be some sort of gap I can exploit…' Rei thought about it for a moment 'he is faster at accelerating, but slower at braking…is he just playing with me?'

And that's what it now started to look like, for as long as the Skyline could insure a blocking position, it would be impossible to make an opening. This was aided in turn to the fact that the narrow sections of the road were at the start, and didn't offer much in the way of openings. She was really pushing her limit now; the car was holding out very well now against the GT-R…just that Rei was still behind the car. It was annoying, all she could do was follow and this skyline would only lazily drive around the corners without even slipping the rear wheels. Now Rei noted how he would slow down even more, forcing her to slow down to avoid a ramming.

'Just a few more corners and the road will open up; I need to stop thinking about this…' Rei thought, having exhausted her ability to keep track of the times, she knew the driver was now just slowing her down now, it was no mistake. Three more corners and the road opened up to a long straightway. She needed to just open up just behind him, and then…hopefully…get in the lead. But ahead in the midnight black GT-R, Ryosuke could only smirk at the headlights of the chasing car as it kept falling behind and catching up as they entered the next entry.

'You're doing very well doll, I can believe you haven't wrecked the car yet' Ryosuke chucked, "maybe I should have rammed you instead of Gendo's coward of a kid"

He came up to the next corner, first releasing the accelerator pedal, slowing down naturally without brakes before downshifting and turning the car. It was a difficult skill, but grip driving had the single merit of allowing Ryosuke to mess up the pattern of the other driver. Had he driven at full speed, a skilled enemy would have managed to figure out a thing or two from his driving and figured it out to determine the driving skill once they could overtake. Doing this, Ryosuke determined to make it hard to be predictable later on when the more critical factors became important; tire wear and concentration degradation.

It also had the added bonus of being something to unbalance less experienced drivers. Rei was such a person, and even with all her knowledge, a thing he had deliberately tested in his time as a student teacher at the school. The results of the testing had shocked him, no so much given what he already knew about Rei, but enough to consider using this tactic. It was a gamble, if Rei was calm and composed, she would live past this section…what he was gambled on however was her mental state. She would obviously be questioning the notable decrease in speed and use up her concentration trying to determine the reason.

But right now came the straightway in two turns, it was at least a kilometer long, even the FC could catch up to him in this stretch, and if Rei played it right, she would use the time to refresh her mind the necessary amount of time to focus on the second half of the battle. What Ryosuke needed to do was prevent her resting on the straightway. More importantly, Ryosuke needed to insure that she didn't get past him at the straightway. If he had to follow her into the tight corner section, where grip driving had disadvantages, he would probably fall behind. Both cars came around another hairpin, just ahead was a small corner, and after that, a straight kilometer of track. Rei was carful to conserve its speed drop now; she decided a few turns ago to try reducing the amount of speed she lost. That way the time needed to build back up the entry speed wouldn't be as difficult. A few goes had made it possible, but she still didn't have the ability beat that punch of acceleration the Skyline had.

She could have cursed, had it been known to her how, but Rei was now silent, trying to concentrate on focusing on the next corner now. She knew the straightway was up ahead, it was where he and Shinji started their little contest. The FC's engine continued to make the noise of a well tuned 13B turbo and responded with plenty of power to catch up to the GT-R's tail, this time quite a bit before the corner. Her handling of entry speeds was getting better, she wasn't loosing so much now, and she wasn't colliding with him, something that at the start of the race felt like a concern. Ryosuke couldn't quite tell this since the difference was subtle. Instead it helped build up to this moment. Ryosuke's brake lights came on just then and Rei's followed them, into the corner, her eyes focused on his tail, or that little R as a target of her gaze.

The Mazda's brakes and wheels reacted and came around for a much faster performance entry, hanging onto the outside even more then before. Rei found that if she did that, her speed wasn't lost as much as when she focused on trying to stay as close to the inside as before.

"Now…" Rei pulled back on the gearshift, now at the point of the turn where she pulled out and started to catapult forward. As excepted the GT-R catapulted with the forward push of its 2.5L engine churning out the energy to out perform the FC's turbocharged 1.3L. Rei ignored it, instead focusing on hitting the pedal to the stops and completing the turn smoothly. Now straight out, she started to work the gears up for real this time. The result was the forward push that only a well tuned Mazda FC3S RX-7 could achieve. In a moment Rei felt the speed and focused on catching up, at the same time. She closed her eyes and breathed. An abnormally crazy thing to do, but Ritsuko had once told her how 3 seconds closed; she could regain her attention span by a dozen minutes. She needed to reconstruct her mind, the car was accelerating, and she only was counting now, it would take five seconds or so before she was caught up, four of those seconds she was blind.

When she opened them the GT-R was still ahead of her and exactly where she thought it would be. She was refreshed, but her real battle began. Without prompting, Rei slipped to the side and kept using her accelerating pace…she hadn't actually stopped accelerating since the corner, to overtake the Black Skyline. Just as she was about to, Rei noticed it and almost hit the brakes, instead just releasing the pedal a second. Having done the former might have actually lost any and all momentum gained. Ryosuke had just side shifted into her path. Actually slowing him down, but blocking Rei off none the less. Rei annoyed decided to try the other way, just to see if this was some fluke. Rei moved the wheel over and steered to the left as she changed the lane. And again the Black skyline moved; this time rapidly covering the change to cover Rei's path. She didn't know what do think of this new move on Ryosuke's part. This confirmed two things in her mind; Ryosuke knew the importance of this straightway and was going to block her off to make sure she could do anything about it.

* * *

"What?!" Sosuske almost yelled back into radio "He's blocking her path?"

Both Misato and Ritsuko almost bit their lip when they heard it, based on all they learnt they were betting on Rysouke not knowing that tactic.

"That sounds about right" Keiichi grumbled as he marked off the location on the map 'Ryosuke isn't stupid…' he then wondered to himself, 'but I wonder if Rei isn't' he said poking the end of the straightway, a wide 45 degree corner followed by another in a S curve.

* * *

At the moment where most drivers would be raging at the situation, it was Rei's intellect and delayed reaction that saved her. Instead of repeating the mistake, she didn't need to try pushing the chances of him making a mistake. But what her mind mentally worked out was another solution. Instead of just lagging behind, Rei came even closer to the Skyline, 2 meters instead of the 5 meters. If she was going to make this work, she needed the advantage of being closer, and working on the fact that Ryosuke wasn't flooring it. If he had after all, his steering would've been shakier then this.

'This will only work once…' Rei told herself, both because he didn't think Ryosuke was stupid and she was running out of road to do this. Up ahead she had been told was where Kensuke, Hikaru and Toji were watching, it was an irrelevant point her mind played with as she again changed lanes to the left side, the outer side of the next corner. As excepted the GT-R turned to block her, this time clearing her bumper by a meter or so. In the exercise, she noted it took a couple of seconds for him to pull it off. 3 seconds to react, that would be enough…she hoped.

"She's trying again" Ryosuke noted as the headlights suddenly disappeared from the rearview mirror. He hadn't expected Rei to catch up so soon, but that was just his luck, blocking her was excepted to only occur once, not three times now…she must be very determined to try me. He turned the wheel and moved to the left, tracking the headlights. What was really an optical illusion, he didn't notice that the second headlight was actually the first headlight he saw going the other direction. He was too close to the front of the FC to see both headlights so when the headlight moved to the right, he assumed it was the right headlight. But it took him a another four seconds before he noticed the oddity by this time and then the blright shining reflection of his side mirror almost blinded him as the beam of the left side was clearly closer then it should be…

Rei had did a double shift, not quite moving all the way to the left, instead staying in the centre and then moving back to the right, the Skyline had moved to the left, and Rei had her opening. She waited the nanoseconds…then her headlights were upto the back wheels, and the slower speed of the skyline made the results more or less a result of the luck that only skilled drivers would be famous for.

"What! Where?!" Ryosuke looked in his rear view and then the side one, by this point he could see the Mazda emblem on the front as the car was now speeding up to the driver side door. At once he had a panic reaction, hitting the accelerator. Given he was already pretty fast speed and the Skyline at higher speeds didn't make much in the way of a speed boost, all it did was briefly push the front of the silver Mazda back to the rear wheels. All in this 5 or 6 seconds, Ryosuke had ignored the fact he was suppose to slow down soon for the corner… then added he was suppose to take the inside of the corner, now occupied by the Mazda, it was a total of 10 seconds before he noticed it. He hit the brakes…instantly relieving him of the impact probability, but he could've probably gotten the same, and less costly result of just turning the wheel to the right while he had the gap to do so and just released the accelerator.

The result instead was the Mazda surging its nose ahead, and Ryosuke falling back slowly. By the time his speed had been regained from the loss, Rei was completely ahead and side shifted just in time to turn the corner in a high speed power slide. The drift was rather wide and the fact the road was now wider was probably the best thing. By the time she straightened out and her counter steer engaged the second corner, Rei was in control… and the skyline was now right behind her.

* * *

"She what?" Sosuske asked with a face of utter confusion "Right at the end of the straightway?"

"She did a double take, forced him outside the quickly took the inside" the radio chirped in reply. It was actually Kensuke, who this time had a radio to report the race. This might have been a mistake since Kensuke's description was both vivid and a little frantic.

"Alright, I think I got the details" Sousuke replied, "she got ahead of Ryosuke…right at the end she took the inside"

"How the hell did she do that?" Misato asked

"Rei used the blind side of the mirrors. She probably just pretended to go left, but then went right again while Ryosuke was still going left. Once the gap was closed and Rei was right on him, Ryosuke must've panicked and tried to avoid a collision with the guardrail" Keiichi explained "Rei didn't have to stop and continued until the right moment, her tail was clear for a moment because Ryosuke braked…so she could do a power slide around before having to correct for the second corner"

"Impossible…" Ritsuko replied, only because no words could properly describe the shock of the moment,

"This is going to set him off" sosuske said looking down at the map "Ryosuke is going to snap"

"What do you mean?" Misato asked looking down at the S curve the two cars just passed.

"Ryosuke just got beaten at his own game" Keiichi replied "a blocking maneuver just backfired and cause him to lag behind…he's going to be shocked and surprised"

"So what now?"

"Ryosuke's bag of tricks don't stop at blocking and slow driving" Sosuske said "as Keiichi said, his mastery is in defeating his opponents in mental games"

"Fortunately, those tricks are rather mundane compared to his earlier ones" Keiichi finished "if Rei is as smart as she just proved to be, she won't be bothered by them."

"Exactly what can Ryosuke do now?" Ritsuko asked

"A few things, distraction tactics don't work well if you know they backfired once already, Ryosuke would however start to think about some really irrational moves" Sosuske answered

"Like?" Misato worryingly asked

"Ramming, trying to force the other car into a spin" Keiichi replied, "he didn't expect Rei to outfox him and perform very dangerous stunt like overtaking like that. He'll want to take her out now"

"Ramming!?" Misato replied in surprise,

"He can't do what he did with Shinji" Keiichi replied sternly "and even if he did, too many people are watching"

"He doesn't need to run her off the road, just mess her up enough to create an opening" Sousuke explained "nudging the rear for a split second during a turn, that's legitimate"

"Just like that? But how the hell is he going to pull that off?" Ritsuko asked

"That's the good news, he needs the chance to do that, but doing it now is risky" Keiichi continued, "He has no idea how Rei drives yet. So he doesn't know the right time to engage"

"So Rei is safe?"

"Not really" Sousuke replied "as I said, it's a really irrational move, he would only try it if he was angry"

* * *

With the lead now gained, the FC was now able to open up its full speed range; at this Rei was not hesitant in opening up the gap. She still had to worry about the superior power that the skyline clearly had, but was not in anyway fearful as before about the power difference now she had the lead. These corners were a lot sharper then before where grip driving was better, now Rei could go all out.

'I'm in the hot seat now…' Rei thought as she downshifted for the next corner, now free from the restraint of following the car behind her. Her big mistake she noticed that she left a fair bit of gap in her cornering now. Having just taught herself to do that to keep her speed up, Rei now had to revise her lesson on the fly to block the inside and keep her speed up. It was annoying that her method had to change twice in flight, but she had taught herself to drift in only a few weeks, merely by copying the path Shinji did repeatedly. Rei turned the steering wheel, moving it closer to the inside and expanding her drift to cover a wider arc. Exiting became faster to control, but not without the limitations of being too slow.

Coming out of the corner, Rei noticed that she had actually come out a lot slower then was use to, but she needed to work on that. Behind her the skyline continued to grip drive right behind her but was increasingly worked up trying to find an approach to overtake again.

"I…don't believe it" Ryosuke silently muttered to himself. It had backfired; the whole race had backfired on him. He had just screwed up in the biggest way possible, worse he had just been outfoxed on his own trick. Having Rei adapt a countermeasure and then defeat him on the first go, all in the space of a kilometer. Maybe he should have avoided taking the outside…it would've been fine if she took the outside, she would've had to break to allow to turn anyway…instead the corner, she had tricked him… a complete novice just managed to beat him out.

"Well…I guess there is a time for playing with dolls…and playing for real" Ryosuke licked his lips and focused on the turning speed of the RX-7. His R-34 was really inferior once he had been overtaken, he knew it, and it was because his experience in racing never focused on overcoming the shortfalls there. From here on out, Ryosuke would just be playing a game of catch up, unless he found a chance to overtake, which wasn't likely since his cornering ability was still very bad at top speed.

"Well if you want to take it all the way doll, I'm all for it" Ryosuke downshifted as he entered the corner, focusing his eyes not on the road, but in the drivers side window of the drifting FC, seeing for the first time the car in real action. His anger overcame whatever common sense he would have to appreciate the majestic form that the FC took when turning. Ahead, he knew he would have to do it again, just like before. Ahead were plenty of chances to knock Rei into slowing down and forcing himself to over take the car. This time he couldn't knock her out completely, too many people were watching. Merely a spinout would be sufficient. He could blame it on her inferior driving skills and inexperience if it came to that, but he needed to be patient. He needed to get a feel for her driving in a hurry.

Ahead in the FC, Rei could feel the pressure on her back, the glaze of the Skyline's lights were occasionally reflecting via her rear view mirror and messing with her vision. She couldn't let the whole effort of before go to waste. Every time she saw the corner the reaction was the same, the instant calculation of deciding the correct time to enter the corner and drift around it; The brake time, the pedal movements, the wheel movement… all of this was already draining away the refreshment she gained at the straightway when she took four seconds to ignore the race. Right now she was starting to feel the pressure, and starting to feel among other things. The tires would start to loose their efficiency as she continued these hard turns and entered the corner at high speeds. Her mind was actually starting to reach the limit, the thankless task of no longer asking questions about performance issues before were now replaced and drowned out by the harder task of her mathematical approach to cornering.

'Just a little further' Rei kept telling herself between corners, 'another corner closer, and another meter closer' as she downshifted and hit the brakes again, wrapping the steering wheel around to enter a sharp hairpin, pulling the handbrake just to add some more swing. She was very bad at this, but it was exactly on par with ryosuke's ability to pull off the same stunt. So it was not badly noticed by all watching that she did poorly or not.

* * *

Ryosuke was quite annoyed at the present situation. Not only was Rei good at driving it seemed, but she had already proven that it would be no easy task to just distract her with the usual bag of tricks…after all dolls rarely reacted to that kind of stuff. Now he was stuck with a situation where he would loose and be forced to live with being beaten down by Ritsuko twice now. The first time for playing around too much and being himself and now by Ritsuko's pet, which was making a mockery of his driving in front of all these people. It was just that simple; he just needed to wait for the right moment to see what kind of opening he had to just nudge her. Just a bit…then regain the lead all the way to the finish line.

The engine's sounds were like a rhythm of increasingly tense tones, going faster and slower as the corners came and went, the whistle of the turbocharger blowing almost on a timed orchestration as the course kept throwing the car into tighter corners that pushed the larger bodied cars to their limits. It was here that Ryosuke finally noted the flaw in the driving and he even knew where to attack it too. The problem he now had to do was insure he was close enough to do it. His chance was coming up quickly and he found himself almost laughing aloud as he brought the R-34's speed back up to match the FC's.

Entering the corner just before it, he saw it again, he finally figured out the problem with here driving. It wasn't that she was so damn fast, but she was also inexperienced and her cornering was rather unrefined. From the start of when she was leading. Rei had been driving really far out from the inside; probably as a result of keeping her trying to speed up during the first part of the race. But now she was trying to by both faster and still blocks the inside track from his access. The speed of the FC had created a stability issue; Rei was drifting her back out way too far.

"I guess I should apologies, but this is fair play in racing" Ryosuke spoke as he entered the saw the upcoming hairpin. Just as before, Rei did everything and pulled the handbrake all the way over to aid her here. Ryosuke did the same as usually but pulled his handbrake too to allow it to do a power slide, that effect, combined with the heavy mass of the R-34 created the necessary speed to turn it around and power slide it alright behind the FC on the inside 'tapped' the rear of the Silver Mazda, with all the rough delicacy of kicking a ball.

At once; Rei felt the whole car frame jump or move suddenly as the car's drift started to move out of the way she was trying to force it to go. She for split second reacted first to the problem, not even caring about the car behind her. Accelerating, she gave her car forward momentum to stop the swing further, then she turned the wheel to swing it back for the corner exit, using the handbrake to deadbolt her back into place; All in the space of half a corner. Her car exited and wiggled its tail for a few seconds until the swinging momentum was gone. No ordinary driver would've reacted the same way; they would've spent a second to see the car and then failed to keep the lead.

Even as the GT-R was speeding up to try retaking the lead; The FC had presented such a wild counter swing that Ryosuke had to slow for a second to get his bearings… realizing again that it was a mistake and the action she took always got under control. He had just accomplished nothing, the car was still ahead, and now Rei had just learnt and important lesson about her tail.

"Damn it, it didn't even unbalance her!" Ryosuke shouted at nobody except the car ahead of him.

* * *

"Just rammed her?" Sosuske asked the radio,

"Yes, but it didn't do anything!" the speaker chirped "she has amazing control over that FC! she just leveled out and blocked him before he could take the chance"

Keiichi grunted with some approval before ticking the area, he had a vague guess he would try it at a hairpin, but he didn't know which one. Misato was breathing easier now, not quite sure if that was a good thing, hearing that news had both shocked her and then relieved her that Rei could hold her own.

"It's going to end soon" Keiichi spoke to himself, looking up to Sosuske who nodded in agreement

"What's going to end?"

"He's been outfoxed; he's failed to unbalance her twice now" Sosuske said "if you were getting irrational and kept making mistakes, what would you do?"

Both women didn't take another second longer to think about that.

* * *

Ahead in the FC, Rei was now feeling new emotion…she felt hot…fuming she thought was the term. She had just had the same thing happen to her that almost killed Shinji. She didn't actually know how hard she had been hit, nor had any clue as to if the hit was intended to knock her off the course. But it had engaged the emotionless mind into a torrent of rage that most would consider mild and calm. Her mind was collective though, overriding her anger by drowning it out with the immediate problem of calculating her next corner. She didn't even come to think about the dint that would be present on the back right side now; it didn't appear to affect the performance of the car in anyway.

She just knew that she had to keep driving, at the same time a new section of her brain was thinking carefully about the problem. He hit her broadside knowing that if she wasn't paying attention, it would've caused a spinout and she would have lost instantly. Coming into the corner, this time a lot wider and not as tight, Rei returned to her original Drift pattern, but keep very close to the inside, it had the effect of making her exit speed slower then before, but it didn't make accelerating harder. What she just needed to figure out was how to make the most performance with the least amount of counter steering, for that Rei had very few ideas, she had tried it before when she was using the outside to keep her speed up, but the seemingly tighter radius of the inside track made it very hard to get the right balance.

'for the moment, I'm doing fine' Rei thought about it, 'if I don't open up so much, he wont have the ability to spin me out like before'

But she needed the speed, if she didn't go faster, Ryosuke could just use the chance to come side by side with her and beat her into the next corner. Rei needed something to work for her; right now it was just plain luck that avoided the initial spin out from before, and she managed to just sneak in ahead of Ryosuke back on the straight way. Rei badly needed to break some distance from Ryosuke and the only way to do this was to go and use a wider drift. Behind her in the midnight black skyline, Ryosuke was now stressed out and looking for another chance. The next corner showed him that she wasn't changing form. Was she really that stupid? This time he'll ram her broadside, a mere tap wasn't good enough to disrupt her rhythm, she needed an uncontrollable spin…one that nobody could recover from.

But he needed at place for it. He was running out of places where it could look like an accident. It took awhile to think about it, but then it became ironically clear…how strange would it be for the FC driven by Rei crash in the exact same corner that Shinji's 86 fell victim. It was only a couple of turns away; the time to decide was now. But the choice was clearly obvious; Rysouke was desperate now, he had been embarrassed too many in the course of this race. He wouldn't let some cloned failure of a school girl outdo him.

Rei knew it, and she recognized it almost out of consciousness. This was that corner… where last time she was chasing the GT-R and saw Ryosuke almost kill her…friend? Brother? The definition to who Shinji was top her almost overtook her mind completely and might have caused her to loose track of the approach to the S curve. Rei ignored the trival matters for now; her mind was focused back on the task of the race. Just like her rage from before, all it did was channel into a repository of other emotions that eventually turned into vapor, fuelling her motivation to race. Rei didn't even count now, at the right moment she hit the brakes and turned the wheel, not a lot since she needed to counter it out for the S curve. The FC responded to the demand for power instantly and entered the car into a light drift, more like a power slide given now the angle was going.

Right on her tail was Ryosuke with his GT-R about to deliver the killing blow. Rei pulled out of the drift and worked again on getting her tail end out to the other side to complete the maneuver, she was careful, very careful now to keep her speed as fast as possible, and her already strong grip on the wheel was tightened. Ryosuke saw the opening and didn't need a single motivation, he pulled his Skyline out of the initial corner is car had entered and hit the accelerator, his eyes targeted on the passenger side door as the left corner made it by choice the target. Rei was far too prone; all he had to do was keep accelerating until impact. Ryosuke didn't see the bright thing from the trees a hundred meters suddenly glint for a second, and ignored it as his own drift quickly closed the gap on the cars.

From above on the high ground above the corner, Asisaka, Kazuma and the two other racers gasped for a second as the saw for a second the impact about to take place before them, seeing clearly that Rei was about to get full on slammed by Ryosuke. Asisaka who almost felt she was seeing the thing in slow motion would've shouted something, had not for the split second where she felt the air beside her break from the motion of a high speed object. Even long after what had happened, she would never have thought the two things would be connected.

At the second before the two cars impacted, the front left tire on Ryosuke's Midnight Black GT-R 34 Nissan Skyline exploded. This set in to play a chain reaction of events, the first of which avoiding the FC which was not even aware of the events started. Ryosuke was the first to notice the abnormally when the wheel suddenly jolted and control yawed into the left side. Then the sudden skidding as the metal plates of the wheel itself impacted with the corner at just over 100km/h, this in effect created a point in which the car rotated, while at the same time, the forward momentum of the car as now swinging towards the gutter, or more correctly inverted so that the driver side of the car was going forward. The gutter in this case was really dirt that lead up to the sudden mount that rose 2 to 3 meters above the road. In almost several seconds and despite the best efforts of Ryosuke, his best efforts was to hit the brakes which would do nothing but slow down the front of the car while the back half now completely spun around and went faster then the front halt.

What the killing blow came from a small boulder. In the last major rainstorm, the rock actually collapsed the dirt under it and it slid onto the road. Now it was pushed back here. At 95km/h, the front right wheel hit the boulder; the impact instantly caused a new variable in the stopping of the out of control car. The engine housing for RB26 was instantly destroyed, while designed to take some minor damage. The engine was never expected to survive a catastrophic structural failure quite like a head on impact or in this case, a side on impact that sandwiched the engine block with the coolant pipes and other mechanical elements of the car. The overpressure of the crunch instantly destroyed the gearbox and drive train collapsed and the engine itself cracked. The front axel of the destroyed forward section penetrated into the ground as the right wheel snapped free.

The momentum of the car hitting an object added the effect, and since the rear of the car was still moving, the front of the car had to move, and in doing so; started to roll over the boulder. Ryosuke knew it was over when he saw the outside of his window turn clockwise and gravity change direction. Holding onto the wheel was all he could do as the Skyline vaulted right over the rock and into the air. The skyline spent all of two seconds in the air, and upside down completely. Ryosuke's life would be spared from instant and crushing death by the hindsight of installing a bar cage not long after he purchased his Skyline 2 years ago. Despite that, the crushing impact of the massive weight of car on the ground at a still high speed collapsed the cage by a few inches before the roll continued in the general direction if had started.

The car continued on crushing the passenger side before returning to the base wheels, which had long since lost its front wheels, this momentum didn't stop at one roll however. The skyline subjected itself to three more. On the second one it crashed past the guardrail and down into the tree line where it was eventually stopped by a large pine. Right side up, but completely and utterly destroyed as the high speed sports car it had been less then a minute ago.

Because Rei had kept an eye on the car behind her as her drift was happening, she had seen the whole thing start after it collided with the rock. A moment of her mind turned into a five minute debate on if she should stop or not. That moment of a few second had take all of the time the car behind her was upside down before Rei without thinking pulled the handbrake and steered the wheel all the way over; Bringing her FC into a controlled spinout. Reaction from Touya and Takashi came at once as they slid down the dirt sides of the spot they were standing and ran across the road, only stopped when the FC slowly came to a stop, pointing its front at where the car exited the road. With that, Rei stopped and got out and looked down at the whole in the bushes where the Skyline and Ryosuke disappeared.

* * *

"What?!" Keiichi almost made a dint in his own car with how much force he punched it.

"There has been a crash! Ryosuke's car flipped and went into bush land!" the radio repeated back. With that, both Misato and Ritsuko froze into place and instantly thought for a moment that Rei had been taken out. But the repeated message that Ryosuke crashed was repeated and both instantly found relative relief.

"Yes, I'm heading there now" Keiichi hit the off switch and quickly looked at Ritsuko "  
I hate to ask… but are you a medical doctor?"

"Yes" Ritsuko merely nodded, understanding what was being asked of her. Right now her displeasure in Ryosuke's threats was to be ignored and her duty as a doctor had to impose over that. Without further prompting, she opened the passenger door of the Maroon Skyline. Keiichi ripped the map off the hood and gave it to Sosuske before running to his own side of the car. Misato nodded as she received the map and stood back as Keiichi got in. In a few seconds the car was running and in a few more the car started its own way out from the parking lot and started racing on its own towards the crash.

"Let's follow!" Sosuske said as he started running to his own ride,

"Right!" Misato replied instantly in agreement and ended up leaving the map in the hands of the guy held the stopwatch.

* * *

Rei, Touya and Takashi followed the path of destruction down until they down the car. It was total wreckage; all the surfaces were positively damaged and the fact it was right side up only made the task of recognizing its former outline easier. When they got to twenty meters away from the car, both Touya and Takashi stopped approaching, in fear that a fire might erupt in a second, but Rei didn't stop.

"Rei! What are you doing?"

Rei ignored the voices, and continued on, as she did, the voices in her head continued to debate from back in the car.

'Should I let him die?' was the feeling that her mind asked itself when she finally recognized it. The driver side door had come off halfway down the slope and there still strapped in, just like how Shinji looked when he crashed. The only different she supposed, apart from age, and her dislike for him…was he was still conscious. Without doing anything else; Rei stood there and watched, waiting for her mind to decide. This man had interrupted her life, he had injured her, he had put Shinji in coma, she had tried no less then 5 minutes ago to try and do the same to her…she had put their lives in disarray. Should she? Should she not? Should she just watch? Was it worth it?

But then, what would Shinji think? What would Ritsuko think? For as much as they hated him, they didn't want to see him die. It was not like Ryosuke was trying to kill them from the beginning; it was just some annoying problem that didn't seem to have a quick answer. On the one hand; What if he just told someone once he recovered? Could she really risk that? But then if he died, then people would then wonder why he was so desperate to push it, all the way to killing himself. And then they would find out what he knew already, and the last three weeks would be as wasted as a Thursday morning classics class.

The whole debate had really started in the car, and so far it had stopped her from driving on to the finish line. After all, what would be gained from finishing now if the other car was totaled? Now coming here, Rei was now confronted with the two questions of why she was here now, and why her mind was reacting to the crash in almost the same respect as when Shinji crashed.

"Rei!" Touya yelled "Is he alive?"

She didn't reply, though it did at least help her mind with a necessary distraction. It had made her think off topic at least for a second.

"Ayanami-san!" Takashi added

She bent down and looked at the man she had learnt to hate and saw him look back. It took a moment before he recognized who it could be.

"What…are you…doing here?" came the croaked reply. He was blooded up, the airbag didn't deploy and his wheel had actually come off at some point and hit him in the face, the fact he wasn't dead now was something of a surprise. For all of it, his eyes were looking out at the girl who to him looked like an angel about to end his pain.

It was here Rei needed to make her choice, would she just back off and say he was gone? By the looks of things anyway, it looked like he wouldn't actually live very long if something else happened. She could smell the fuel leaking and it would only be a matter of time before the battery or something came in contact with it. Not that it was likely; topsoil did soak up fuel very well. None the less, it was her most complex thought of the night, and it still hadn't been resolved, but before she could think about moving away from the car, Rei's emotions gave one more push to answering a question that bugged her since the beginning. Was death really the only way to resolve this problem, and if so, what difference did it make if he died and they found out anyway?

Ryosuke knew that she probably wouldn't do anything to save him; it was just far too late to make amends and begging for his life to this doll would mean nothing. She didn't place death as an important thing to worry about, when she died, she came back to life soon thereafter…or so he remembered the story going. Now she was staring at him, the blood red eyes looking and casting judgment on him to deem if he was worth of living.

He said nothing, and continued to when her hand reached in and she grabbed the seatbelt that had saved him from snapping his neck and delayed his death.

"What…are you…" he whispered hoarsely

"Living up to the end of my deal" Rei replied before she yanked the centre clip on his seatbelt and unbuckled it. The moment it did, he fell forward onto her, after which she pushed him back into the seat.

"What…deal…" his brain was foggy, he felt like the end was near or something, his fear of the end was making him sweat now and that didn't help stop the bleeding any faster.

"If I take you to the hospital, you'll stop threatening us and leave" Rei released her grip and waited for him to reply.

And from there, twenty meters away from the only two credible witnesses who saw the event, the two agreed on a mutual assurance that would see his life saved and her life left alone forever. Rei pulled him out, carefully before calling the two others to assist. It took five minutes to decide if his back was broken or anything, Touya and Takashi were more then surprised he wasn't dead. But they couldn't be sure but his injuries. But fearing an explosion, which would never happen in this case, they decided to get clear of the car before it caught on fire. Rei alone couldn't carry a full grown man quite like she did in half dragging Shinji out; so the two male road racers who accompanied Rei into the forest picked him up and carried him with Rei in tow back up the hill.

* * *

By the time they returned to the road, two new cars had shown up, Keiichi's R32 and Sousuke's MX-5, Rei didn't know how long they had been down there at the site, but it couldn't have been that long. Rei didn't think much else of the affair as Ritsuko started to examine Ryosuke for vitals. Crowds hadn't quite gathered, though radio announcements went up and down that Rei had won by default of a crash.

It was all over, the whole ordeal was over with the risk exposure. Rei didn't know how to feel about it, had she actually won the race, would he still have done it anyway? Now it felt trivial compared to what she saw before her. But she had done it none the less and revenged Shinji, even if in the end she had shown some mercy. But before her mind could ask another question, Misato came and started talking to her. The first question somehow was at the very least too obvious to ignore, the second one, wasn't quite so;

"Rei, why did you go down there and rescue him?" Misato asked while hugging her only daughter; damned by the logic, she was her daughter for the moment.

"Because…If I didn't" Rei spoke, slowly, "I would have been no better then he was"

With that, Misato hugged her. Her arm covering Rei's mouth now, Rei could've sworn that saying that felt easier by the deciding to.

In a tree above the corner, a figure was sitting down looking back at the scene; it was a real mess from that vantage point. Noticing the quick glance that the girl being hugged by that woman…she had stopped and gone in to pick up the victim. The figure decided it was time to leave; the work here was done in any case. Picking up the long bow, in an instant the figure was no longer in the tree, back on the ground silently walking back home.

* * *

A/N: Finally I finish this race! It's just too bad that I'm space limited. Since I planned way too much to happen in this chapter, and I only try to keep a standard limit of 20 pages. It's kind of hard to determine if I should add more or less. I've heard complaints in the past about lenght issues and my adopted standard is pretty much a compromise on that. I tried to see about cutting down the number of paragraphs, but I found that I couldn't remove any without something important making any sense. In the end, I did a little rearranging of scenes and that make things a lot easier for me.

The whole scene with Rei and Ryosuke at the crash site (and his crash) was pretty hard to work out, I had a decent idea how to approach it, its just that a little doubting part of me kept wondering if it was realistic or not. But in the end I suppose it did help me work out a suitable ending to this whole arc (even if it was from the result of a crash that I went to the effort of consulting about to see if someone could really survive that). Anyway, keep reading and please keep reviewing, knowing your opinion helps me work out how to direct this fan fiction. 2 in 4 days, let's see if I can go 3 in 6 days.

A/N 2: at the notifcation of DrendeSalkash, I've gone through and fixed Ritsuko's name, I think I know how I keep making this mistake, so I'll go back through the chapters and do the fix.

Nighthawk_Imac


	21. Episode 20: Crisis Resolution

**After Evangelion**

**Episode 20: Crisis resolution**

Rei's eyes fluttered open when the sunlight finally reached the height to brighten the curtains so that one could not fail to notice that it was morning. Her mind was still very much asleep and not even in anyway ready to awaken for another day. She had only really been asleep for a couple of hours, so it was understandable when all her limbs and body suddenly made early protest to Rei's mind about even considering getting out of bed. Instead of opening her eyes fully, she closed them again; and to combat the sunlight and merely turned over. Her mind didn't really shut down though, once it started, it just never stopped. Her mind now awake and with nothing to fill the senses started to think about the 'why' of everything. The first immediate question was: why and how was it she in bed now?

Her mind couldn't quite recall it instantly; it was like a faded photograph. Her mind started however to sift through the archives that were her memories and recalled for her consumption the last 8 hours of her life. It didn't take quite as long as she had hoped, but her mind rarely agreed with her body's desire to just go to sleep again. As with everything in her memory, it started to piece together slowly, single events found their connections with other events and formed a string, and while some people would consider this kind of recollection muddled and confused; to Rei this was quite efficient. Eventually she had recalled all the events and started to view them in order.

The whole race, how could she forget that? It felt like it had been a long battle, despite her memory recalling she had only been on the road for at least 15 minutes before that brutally sudden ending. She needed some resolve to remember the fine details; the start, the whole first 10 or so minutes where Rei was stuck behind Ryosuke who had been teasing her patience, the brief moments on the straightway, her pure stroke of genius that turned the tide of the battle…and the ensuing results. It was then she remembered the crash, or what she recalled of it through the rear view screen of the FC. The stark surreal images engraved into her mind of seeing the Skyline turn on its side and disappear.

How a moment of indecision felt like five minutes before she pulled the hand brake and stopped the car to investigate. Only some sort of weird destined fate could explain why Rei had gotten out, joined up with those two other races that Shinji knew and walked down to where the car ended up. Finally from there, looking at the bloodied up coward who had probably envisioned putting her in coma minutes before…how her mind debated on the ultimate sin and the ultimate forgiveness. In the end, her moral standard to not sink to his level was the only string of conscious thought that made Rei does what she did. Taking him back up to where Ritsuko and Misato were waiting. From there the rest was a blur of events that transpired for the rest of the night.

Upon their return to the hospital, already alerted by Ritsuko who just 'happened to be nearby'; Ryosuke was taken to the trauma section and was put under general anesthetic. It had been the quick action of the local racers would probably be the reason to why Rysouke would not die, but probably at the very least end up a wheel chair. Otherwise Ritsuko found the bleak irony of his final statement before going under was purely profound and had made a note to forward it to Misato. The surgery had lasted into the early hours of the morning, but otherwise successfully kept him alive. The actual injuries he sustained were not all that bad considering, the spine being the most badly damaged. Apart from a broken right leg and some head trauma, his worse injuries had mainly been a minor puncture in his left lung that a cracked rib had managed to cause. Internal bleeding had been stopped, but otherwise further treatment for possible spine damage was over the limits of the local hospital.

In waning hours after his initial surgery, a VTOL craft from Tokyo-2 general hospital handed on the roof helipad…a rarely used part of the building and took aboard its passenger for the one hour flight back to Tokyo-2. Ritsuko had gone upstairs and watched the lift off on the roof, knowing that this was the final time she'd have to see the wimp. His promise that this would be the last time they'd see each other would probably be true. Despite all of that, Ritsuko had noted with some small admiration that it was Rei's actions who had finally forced him to give up his threats.

It was only after they all learnt that he would live that Keiichi and Sosuske had then both muttered some mild obscenities as Rei had explained in Ritsuko's office the circumstances of the first ramming, the blocking, and the whole first half of the race. For what he did, being alive was really too much for him, they had even wanted to go up and pull the cords out before the VTOL arrived. But it was Sosuske, not Keiichi who understood the entire depth of Ryosuke's agreement; a promise to never return was in a sense the noblest thing he could've ever said…and this was coming from the guy who ran Sosuske off the road. Both of them left the hospital in the early hours of the morning, agreeing that the night had been one interesting series of events. Keiichi Yamazaki got in his car at around three that morning for the drive back to an inn he had booked himself into in central Karasuyama-2, Sousuke merely drove home.

Misato then had taken Rei home; the reason was that it was now three in the morning and they had a delivery in an hour. Finally alone with her, Misato had done her best while sleep deprived herself to congratulate her on the win…but even Rei could see Misato was still undecided emotionally between the fantastic feeling of winning against Ryosuke and the guilty feeling that he had almost died. In the end, it was down to what Rei had said about his promise to them while strapped to his wrecked GTR-32. Some strange sense of irony or…something, Misato probably wouldn't think of the right word to describe this for weeks. But it was an awful convenience that would only be confirmed in the time after Ryosuke woke up.

On her return home, Misato despite herself being awake over a day and badly needing coffee; elected to stay awake and do the delivery. It was a generous offer, if not worrisome one that was met with concern for a second. After Misato had assured her driving would be at a slow and safe pace; Rei took at value her word and proceeded to drop into bed and go to sleep…almost a day after she had woken up.

'What is going to happen now?' Rei asked herself, her mind now spooled back to the present after her puzzle 'is there something I need…I should do?'

Despite the previous protest of her body, Rei's mind had decided and ordered itself awake. Her mind had decided with a simple decision to just wake up, and with that the guilty pleasures of sleeping in more died away. It took Rei a moment to gain her bearings; she had woken up in a state little removed from a hangover. Looking around on the floor, Rei had found what she had worn last night; those clothes Misato had bought for her first race. She ignored that for the moment and walked sluggishly towards to the full length mirror that was planted on the back of the door, with that Rei had a good look at herself for the first time today.

Her first good look only repeated the same question she asked before she arose from bed. Naked in only her bra and panties, her first irrelevant thought was the strap on her bra had come loose and corrected it. That thought aside, Rei had a good inspection; no scars, no bruises, nothing to indicate she got hurt. She was fine. After staring at herself to answer the immediate questions relating to last night, she asked herself the questions from before. What should she do now?

Without thinking consciously of the action, Rei felt her forehead and then followed the strains of her hair down to the end. Her hair was a lot longer then what it was in her NERV days, grown out to shoulder length now, people had commented that it made Rei look…cooler. Why was longer hair cooler? Didn't it mean that she needed to expend more shampoo and conditioner to clean it?

Rei ignored that thought, it wasn't answering her questions. Today was Sunday, and her school uniform was useless. But for some reason Rei didn't feel like today was a day to stay at home. She turned her attention to the clothes on the floor. On top of the school uniform that Rei had forgotten to hang and/or place in the laundry basket, her only other clothes she had besides the ratty hand-me-downs she had in her suitcase. Rei sat on her bed and reached to pick up the aqua blue cotton top with the long sleeves and black trousers.

She decided against the jacket, there was no point, even if was a little chilly today. Rei was sure, not even by smelling for it, that there was the dry blood of Ryosuke on it. In a few more moments, Rei had subconsciously decided on what she would do for the day, with that she stood up after dumping the clothes back on the bed to first shower before getting ready to leave.

* * *

Ritsuko collapsed onto her couch and just let her body escape to the comforting relaxing realm of sleep. She had been up a full 28 hours now and her body functions were no longer capable of rational thought, despite her earnest attempts to be as such. She managed to supervise the surgery on Ryosuke and then the departure of him via the VTOL taking him away from her and her life here. Ritsuko decided there was no harm in what she was going, letting him go, and after doing that and sitting through a surgery debrief session and then a Sunday daily brief, something she did first thing every day, Ritsuko decided sleep was needed.

In her own selfishness…if one could call it that she commandeered a couple of blankets for an impromptu bed on the couch. Discarding her shirt and jeans, she'd been wearing since yesterday, she feel asleep…assuming she'd get at least a good sleep through this, at least it was more comfortable than sleeping on the floor of Misato's room. However, for as long as she hoped that her staff would follow her orders, even one would have to bend the rules, because she had left a little clause in her orders to allow for people needing to call her.

"Dr. Akagi?"

"What!?" she sharply hissed in a angry tone "this better be important"

Ritsuko draped the blanket around her, rather than put her pants on, it still left her front open, but the nurse wouldn't mind, she was only going to open the door a crack anyway.

"Phone message for you" the assistant nurse frightened at the wrath her boss was showing, handed a phone slip forward.

The nurse had seen people in the nude before, but somehow seeing her supervisor in only undergarments and only covered in a blanket seemed to be both humorous and disturbing to the young woman.

"Is that it? You woke me up for that?"

"Yes Doctor, the person said that you should read this straight away, and that he didn't give a rats if you were sleeping or in surgery"

"Fine" Ritsuko took the paper and slammed the door.

Ritsuko went back to her couch to try again fall asleep, falling back down again, she noted to herself why this couch wasn't a fold out bed. Surely she would remember to change this, after all her body was delicate and doctors were expected to sleep in their offices. The middle age woman picked up her present from the frightened nurse to see what it said.

_It's arriving tomorrow, sorry for the delay_

Ritsuko didn't know what the hell that meant… she thought; her assistant had woken her up for nothing. She would need to moderate her to remember to ask who was calling next time and that wasting her valuable time wasn't helpful. Ritsuko discarded the paper by letting it fall to the ground, turned over on her couch and fell asleep. It was only because of her assumed lack of rational thought that Ritsuko didn't know the importance of this paper slip.

* * *

"So tired..." Kensuke yawned as he sat at the counter "Asisaka, you awake?"

The two of them had their heads on the counter, half awake, both tired out of their minds. The subtle sublime comedy in their motions would have merited inspiration for a few panels of a manga. Asisaka was unable to decide for herself the nature of the day ahead, she had literally been up all day, and Kensuke was in the same state of affairs.

"Want to sneak out and buy some coffee?" Kensuke said, not even lifting his head to speak.

"I can't do that…" Asisaka replied in the exact same manner.

The two of them had their own thoughts of what to do today, Asisaka wanted to propose a shift system that she had used to help Shinji, but Kensuke was thinking that for as long as they kept talking, they wouldn't fall asleep. It was maybe because of the sound of their own thoughts or maybe just because they were just too tired to hear any more suggestions…they had failed to notice Rei enter the store and walk up to the counter.

"Are you sleeping?"

The brittle, cold, monotone voice of Rei was like an electrical shock for the two of them, Asisaka beat Kensuke to sitting upright, but it was he who spoke first.

"Rei?!" Kensuke gasped "…what are you doing here?"

A question that even Rei didn't know the answer to; she had started to compose the rational to why she had appeared here…the obvious default was her 'adventures' always started here…usually because Shinji was here…but he wasn't…so why did she come here instead of the hospital? The blank expression and the impending silence told Kensuke that Rei had absolutely no clue why she had come up. But it wasn't really her fault he knew… Rei's mindset was formed from habits and she obviously came here because…she followed Shinji…and Shinji usually came here in the mornings on a weekend…and somehow she had come here out of habit…but…

"I take it your just getting out and about right?" Asisaka offered, noting that even Kensuke had frozen up in thought trying to determine what it was Rei was thinking.

"I don't know"

The reply made Asisaka think…and now all three of them were confused on a subject that was very simple to answer had Rei had the cognitive ability to reply to it. The simple irony in asking Rei simple questions was one indeed too confusing, and sometimes with the right sense of humor, interesting

"I take it you just came here on a whim then, right?" Kensuke replied,

"I think so"

'We're not getting anywhere with this' Asisaka sighed, already the energy draining from her again. Shock only had so much effect before one returns to their previous state of normality.

"Isn't it a bad idea to be at the store barely awake?"

"Yeah…but with Shinji in hospital, and that whole thing last night…" Kensuke replied.

Rei thought about this kind of situation, applied her learned lessons from manga…the ones that didn't imply nudity as an answer, and replied in kind.

"Is there anything I can do?"

Kensuke thought of it first, then looked to Asisaka for approval, he didn't know from here eyes if she got it, but he ran with it anyway

"There is something you can do for us actually…a favor really"

"A favor?"

"Yes?" Kensuke replied, his idea now having the speed to achieve flight "me and Asisaka can't leave the store, but can you run down the road and get us some hot coffee?"

"I guess I can…" Rei replied before reaching for her wallet to see if she could afford it, Kensuke waved her off when she made the motion and opened the till to take out 1000yen. Asisaka felt a little ashamed at the idea, but had approved when she thought it through, their problem of a second ago solved by the mere chance visit of Shinji's sister.

"What do I have to get?" Rei asked

A brief description followed which then resulted in Kensuke writing down the order since he was sure somehow that Rei would forget. After that complication was past, Rei was out the door and walking towards the closest 7-11 store she knew about.

* * *

Misato only planned to be asleep for several hours, so when her phone went off, her eyes snapped open like mousetraps and gave her the immediate task of finding that infernal noise and shutting it off, preferably for good. After five seconds of isolating the noise, she figured…correctly it was on the kitchen table, and moved her whole body in that general direction, that there was the back of the couch between her and that infernal light source didn't seem to occur to her, and the result was a very unceremonious fall to the ground followed by a mild curse oddly appropriate for the moment.

Crawling on all fours like an animal or a toddler, Misato finally reached the table and after two unsuccessful grabs on the table for the device, she caught it and killed the screeching noise. The task now was to stay awake, this Misato did, staring back up at the ceiling…until she realized it was just the underside of the table. Her headache was back and she did not relish the idea of getting up now since it would require more effort now. None the less Misato had a business to run and even today she knew the store would be closed today while she accessed herself and her friends for what to do next.

After a concerted effort at getting up, Misato found herself on her feet, in the bathroom looking at the mirror to see her face for the first time today. It was at the very least not a pretty sight to wake up to say the least. Ignoring the results of the last day and a half, or last few weeks of stress lines; Misato disrobed for the shower. Turning it on for especially hot…it was getting quite cold lately, even for early October the weather was chilly. She leaned her head against the wall and let the waters impact her back and boil out for her the muscle cramps of her back. It wasn't quite therapeutic, but it gave her the same soothing effect that she would experience in the hot springs around Kyoto or anywhere else.

She went to work on her thinking; showers were good for that she knew from long experience, the aroma of steam somehow negated creating a bigger headache. Her first task would be to go to Ritsuko for an update on Shinji and other business. Then probably to Ryosuke…thank him for his efforts and appreciation for him to stay on their side. Then what…I guess by then it'll be afternoon and the hotels along the mountain road would expect their daily shipment; she would do that again, unless Rei was up to it. Misato wondered about that and stopped the shower, grabbed her towel, and without drying off she walked from the bathroom to Rei…Shinji's room.

Hindsight made Misato wish she had dried off since now with water on her skin to interact with the cold air of her home, she felt even colder than she did when she woke up. But it wasn't so intolerable that she didn't return to the bathroom and dry off. Opening the door to her room slowly, first to see if Rei was still sleeping…then fully to see she wasn't even home. Now wasn't that strange, Rei didn't even leave a note or anything…did she? Misato turned her head to the kitchen table, no message. Maybe Rei thought that she'd only be out long enough to be home before I woke up. None the less the questions weren't making her warmer and Misato finally succumb to returning to the warmer bedroom she lived in to dry off. After a few minutes she was dressed in fresh, unscrambled clothing and now looked something approaching civilized. With that accomplished, she returned to the kitchen in search of her next priority of requirements.

There was sadly no supply of leftovers in the fridge to have at, in fact she needed to go shopping, ever since Shinji was in coma, the three of them had expended the reserves of food that he usually acquired. Misato thought then just how funny it was for everything to rely on Shinji doing, and how she never seemed to appreciate it until he was gone. The laundry was piling up, the house was a massive trash bin of strewn clothing and paper plates…they had used up all the real plates awhile ago. And now the food had run out, all she had was the beer she acquired herself, but she needed solid food. Compelled to eat breakfast, she decided on a dime that she would have to eat out this morning.

She returned to her room to grab the jacket, and to her surprise the car keys rattled in her pocket. She must've forgotten to put them on the hook when she got home…and that meant that Rei had forgone the car and just walked somewhere; she wouldn't be gone long therefore. Misato shrugged it off and in a minute she was in the car thinking of either stopping by a 7-11, or going to that western takeout place on her way to the hospital. She decided on the former, cheaper food there and she knew how hard it was to sneak hot food into the hospital. She put the car into motion and was off for the day.

* * *

Upon completing the task of delivering the coffee to her friends in the store, they briefly chatted about the previous night and what was happening today, at Asisaka's recommendation, she should see Naoko who was suppose to be on shift today. Walking in the cold air, Rei found herself at the boardwalk and outside the café that Shinji had visited with Naoko last time. On her arrival to here, she found herself wondering why Asisaka had even recommended her to visit Naoko, she was one of Shinji's friends after all and while she had talked to Rei before…they weren't really more than acquaintances.

"Ayanami-san?" a voice came from her side, she only had to turn around to know that it wasn't Naoko speaking

"Sakagami-san"

The girl was standing their with a large paper grocery bag in hand and dressed in a dark grey wool jumper with turtleneck and grey skirt that went down to her knee, completing which were leg-length socks. It took a moment for Rei to realize this was the first time she had seen Sayuri dress in something not a uniform. Rei didn't quite know what to do now, but a response from her was in order, which came in short order.

"What are you doing here?" the question didn't seem to have an edge of tone, but it did appear to have some sort of tone that recognized as the one denoting confusion.

"I don't know" Rei replied honestly, no point in taking time with her reply like before

"I see"

With a simple gesture of the face on Sayuri's part, Rei nodded and the two walked together towards the pathway that would eventually lead them to the hospital, but the two of them found a park bench under a tree just in sight of the store that Rei was standing outside just before and the two of them started to talk again just like they did the day before on a different park bench that both faced the opposite direction and under a different light of the day.

"So you answered all your original questions?"

"Yes"

"And now you have new ones"

"Yes"

The two of them sat their, Sayuri placing her groceries at her side and staring not at Rei but at the store she was standing outside when they bumped into each other. Sayuri herself didn't know how to describe Rei. She had the mixed emotions of a person her age, but the honesty at her own confusion spoke of a person much older then she let on sometimes, and at other times of someone much younger than she appeared. She didn't know how to describe it. Rei at the same time didn't quite how to describe Sayuri, she was very calm, coolheaded, very precise with her motions as she witnessed yesterday during her own solo practice at the sword. More importantly, her advice while cryptic had the unique ability of being understood by Rei when its importance was at the most crucial.

Sayuri then looked at Rei, who too was staring at the store. She had a close look at the eyes, she remembered learning so much from people by the way they looked; Rei's eyes were not afraid of death, not afraid of the usual fears, but she did hide something else; not fear, not concern, not anything human. To be more honest with herself, Sayuri wondered if Rei was even aware of these fears or had remained ignorant of them; if that was the case, she had something that Sayuri had never witnessed before and that had interested her greatly.

"Do these questions relate to what to do now?"

Rei didn't reply for a few seconds, then answered "yes"

"You do the next thing" Sayuri answered "there is always a something after now"

Rei nodded, and pondered what that next thing was for her. After today? She had school tomorrow, maybe that was just it, and she had to just do the next thing in her daily routine. She would probably do the delivery for Misato today and tomorrow, and every day the week, that was just expected for her, at least until Shinji returned from hospital. After that? Another race; unlikely, she had only done it in place of Shinji for this one time and even then, it was for a special reason. Her learning experience from that would not be over for a long time. Was it simply a return to the usual life that Shinji had once lamented over wanting?

Sayuri rarely though out of the abstract and this one though, which she would put down to her curiosity in Rei…resulted in her decision to make this request.

"Come to me after school this week, but after Monday…maybe I can help you again"

"I understand"

"Rei!" came a voice from the direction of the café, it was Naoko.

"I guess I should return home" Sayuri gathered her groceries and stood

"Hey Sayuri! I didn't know you were here too" Naoko replied once she managed to recognize the girl next to Rei. While she was very easy to notice, Sayuri's black hair and dark clothes made her almost invisible against Rei's bright blue hair and bright colors. Sayuri already had her back to Naoko and didn't even reply and just like that she continued apace down the pathway towards her own home.

"How rude, she didn't even say hello" Naoko spoke rather angrily "I can never understand what is going on in her head…can you?" She looked at Rei who still hadn't gotten up from her seat.

"I don't know" Rei simply replied, both lying and telling the truth.

"Asisaka told me that you had gone to my workplace to talk to me…too bad she forgot I wasn't working today"

"I see" Rei finally got off the seat to be able to see Naoko at eye level "I'm just…finding the next thing to do today"

"Well if you want, I'm going to look at new clothes, and by the looks of it, you should come with me, didn't you wear that last night?"

"I did, it's the only thing I have except old clothes"

"Well lets change that" Naoko smiled, already envying her day ahead, she had always wanted to grab either Hikari or Asisaka along on her Sundays off, and somehow going clothes shopping with Rei seemed to be just as interesting.

* * *

"Had a good sleep?" Misato joked as she pulled the cover, and to her amusement finding her friend in only her underwear. This resulted in a good chuckle on her part "Even when I slept in the office, I at least kept my clothes on!"

"Shut up…I sleep better this way" Ritsuko grabbed her blouse and proceeded to get dressed. She put on her shirt as well but didn't bother with all the buttons, in front of Misato she didn't need to look professional. Once she was behind her desk, Misato had opened the bag and gave the doctor a bottle of tea. After swallowing down her first swig; Ritsuko started speaking

"Couldn't you have waited until later to bug me?

"It's late already, how much longer did you want me to wait?"

Ritsuko didn't bother rebutting that argument since had nothing in her head to fight back that comment. Before their talk could go any further a knock on the door came, it was the nurse. Misato got up since Ritsuko wasn't even going to bother getting ready for her.

"Here are your meals" the nurse handed her a tray with the two packages, both steaming warm "and can you tell Dr Akagi she has another guest?"

"Oh, who is she?"

"A Mrs. Natsumi Kakizaki" the nurse replied "she said she has business with regards to Ryosuke-sensei this morning"

Misato instantly went on alert; Natsumi Kakizaki was the deputy principal of the high school. Misato nodded and asked for a minute before returning to the desk. By the time the minute passed; Misato had done an impromptu cleanup of the office while Ritsuko had dressed herself more appropriately and behind her desk with the look of a doctor wide awake, just having lunch with an associate.

"You two didn't need to clean up on my part" Natsumi said as she took the other seat in front of the desk "Misato, we've known each other too long for that"

"Wait, you two know each other?" Ritsuko asked, now annoyed at the impromptu orders that Misato said to clean herself up, not that she would have anyway.

"Only for as long as Shinji has been coming to school, me and Misato talked a lot when he was having problems adapting"

"…I see"

"I'm very sorry that I had to call you out on such short notice, and despite the concerning news over your son" she replied with the normal formalities before attaching her own personal thoughts to it, "how is he?"

"He's alright" Misato replied "Dr Akagi can give you better information"

Natsumi turned to face the doctor who then explained that 'yes he is fine' line and it was only a matter of him waking up now.

"I'm actually here because I was told one of the teachers on staff was in an accident last night"

"Ryosuke-sensei?" Ritsuko replied

"Yes…something about a car accident"

"That's correct, he's suffered some minor injuries, but we're concerned about spinal damage so we've sent him to Tokyo-2 to be examined"

"I see" Natsumi said, before making a remark that surprised both of them "we'll, I guess it was a lot better he leave this way"

Neither Misato nor Ritsuko knew what to say in response to that; Natsumi seeing it on their faces decided just to elaborate before they got even more confused.

"What I mean is, I've had a dozen complaints about Ryosuke harassing students, and his arguments with me the other day over the assignments that some students handed in, including your son" Natsumi turned her head to Ritsuko "and your daughter"

"This wouldn't happen to be a history assignment would it?" Misato enquired

"Yes, it is"

"And?" she now worried, Misato knew Natsumi quite well, they hadn't talked for awhile, but they did occasionally run into each other at the supermarket and around town, as well as their bi-annual student-teacher-parent interviews.

"Well, the principal and I have agreed to terminate his contract with us and have his name added to a blacklist for people not suitable for working in a school environment"

"I don't think that will be necessary" Ritsuko replied at the sudden news "before he left, he informed me that he will quit his job"

"Then I guess that makes keeping your big secret a lot easier" Natsumi replied calmly

Both Misato and Ritsuko simply stared at the deputy principal of Karasuyama-2 public high school. Both having struck absolute fear into their spines that expanded to a chilling effect that could've frozen water, neither wanted to even attempt a reply not knowing that their silence alone would just confirm her suspicions. So Ryosuke had told someone…he had lied all along and now his word meant nothing when he woke up in Tokyo-2.

"How long?" Misato asked

"Have I known?" Natsumi asked "close to a year"

Now Misato was confused "…how?"

"Misato, they don't give the job of deputy principal to idiots" Natsumi almost chucked "I put two and two together awhile ago; it was only a year ago when Toji and his family moved here I got confirmation,"

"What do you know?" Ritsuko was more direct,

Natsumi went on to briefly explain what she knew; this included Shinji and Rei as Evangelion pilots, Shinji's blood relations and Rei's technical KIA status and Ritsuko and Misato's former jobs, as well as the details on the real cause of Toji's injuries. At the end of if, Ritsuko was praying that nobody was walking outside the office just then as Natsumi as quietly as possible compromised the information they though safe again no less than five minutes ago. At the end of it, Misato and Ritsuko were both open mouthed and wondered how this was going to play out now. The only seemingly helpful thing from this confession was that Natsumi didn't learn this from Ryosuke, but on her own.

"Who else knows?"

"Only one other person I'm sorry" Natsumi said "Mr. Mardukas"

"That British guy?" Misato said in surprise.

She was referring to the principal that was in charge of the high school last year. The man, who Misato felt was a little too strange in his manners to be an educator was very odd, she had heard he had been in charge of a military school once, and that maybe explained the behavior. In the two or three meetings with him, Misato had always come away from it with the impression that he as a strangely quiet man for his age.

"He said to me that he valued that it remain a secret, he said that in cases like this; it was best for people to remain ignorant"

"Then why are you telling us now?"

"Ryosuke" Natsumi uttered a single word, Misato went silent again "he's started to drop clues to everyone in the faculty, nothing you can connect, but enough to try get some of them into suspecting Shinji on their own"

"That bastard" Ritsuko dropped her head on the table, she knew that Ryosuke keeping silent was too good to be true, even if he didn't just blurt it out, he had left enough of mess behind to-

"I've told the teachers that Ryosuke was lying and baiting students…that what he really was doing was trying to cause distrust among the students" Natsumi responded before the other two came to their own assumptions "the teachers all agree with that line and nobody has gone further with their enquiries"

What Natsumi really had been concerned about was the results of a scandal like this; if one teacher started nosing into the business of the students he or she was suppose to teach, what message would that send? Ryosuke had tried very hard to make other teachers do the same, but faculty knew that nothing good would come out of it and as a result of their protests and had cooperated with the deputy principal, Natsumi then had recommended his dismissal.

"When I leave here, and with your permission, I would like to brief the principal" Natsumi said "I need to tell him now so he knows why Ryosuke raced Rei down Mt Kira road last night"

The second revelation that Natsumi knew about the street race last night, while not as shocking as the previous one, it still all the same gave Misato and Ritsuko the unnecessary shock of their life.

"Now how do you even know that?" Misato said

"You know Takashi Sagara right?" she replied coolly, now starting the enjoyable part of this talk "he's my cousin"

Misato slumped forward in her seat with a face of utter embarrassment and disbelief, it would make no sense for those two to be related, given there was at least eight years of age difference between them. Natsumi then elaborated; a week ago, Takashi had called her and asked if Rei went to her school and then if Ryosuke was teaching at the school. She then learnt of the race planned and how Ryosuke had been responsible for the accidents of the last few weeks. With this new information, Natsumi had spoken with the principal and school director and got them to agree that Ryosuke had to go.

"So what are you going to do now?" Misato asked, knowing that she had all manner reasons to expel both Shinji and Rei; illegal driving, underage driving…and even disrespect to the school if Natsumi really felt like it. It would be a problem either way; it would mean that Shinji would have to move to another town just for an education.

"Nothing"

"Nothing?"

"Misato" Natsumi faced her "nothing good will come out of exposing them to racing, besides the students adore them for it, and if we expel them for something we already knew about, then we would be no better than if we exposed them for being Evangelion pilots"

"I see"

"And as far as this meeting is concerned, I came in to talk to you about a teacher involved in a car accident"

"Which you have…" Ritsuko nodding to their agreement.

And with this simple gesture of good faith, both she and Misato could breathe easier knowing that Natsumi Kakizaki would play ball. With that over, Natsumi concluded matters and with the permission to inform the principal; left the office the same way she entered. Misato didn't quite know how to put it, somehow she expected her to say exactly this, but the revelations were two big hits to her brain that would take all day to heal. Ritsuko felt a similar way, but she was not as naïve as Misato often could be; that deputy principal was one hell of an operator to know what to say to them, that caring look she seemed to have was the perfect poker face for a razor sharp mind.

* * *

"You realize that not a lot of people are even going to believe how I know this right?"

"There is that problem"

Asuka and Shinji were back in deep space, the whole exercise of recruiting Shinji to help in her situation had succeeded and Shinji was only going to wake up soon anyway. Asuka had explained…vaguely what was going on with her real life counterpart. She had been travelling yes, but Asuka refused to confirm or deny if it was because of her prospective modeling career.

"Asuka, Hikari isn't going to believe a word I'm going to say"

"Yes she will, just make sure you two are alone though, the last thing I really want is the two other stooges and those two lackeys you picked up to overhear this" Asuka sternly warned him "Hikari will know what the hell I mean anyway"

"Alright, what do you want be to say"

"Kurt"

"Kurt?" Shinji repeated, what the hell did that mean? Shinji's German was pathetic in that he only knew from memory the curses that Asuka used during the war. Was it a person's name? Was it the name of the company that she worked for? Was it a name of a place?

"Just say that and she'll stop lying to you"

"But what does it mean?"

"I can't tell you"

"Yes you can"

"I can't" Asuka turned her back to Shinji, "learning anything else in this place wont give you a reason wake up"

"I'll wake up when you tell me" Shinji replied angrily, now he remembered the other thing about this Asuka; she acted just like a kitsune, she was sly in her secrets.

"No…" Asuka started to fad out right before his eyes "you're going to wake up now"

* * *

The person Shinji was talking about was standing outside a changing room patiently wondering how the hell she got dragged into this mess. Hikari had the day off and even for her, slept in until late, only leaving the house just shy of midday, on visiting mecha gamers, he learnt through Asisaka that Naoko and Rei had gone off to clothes shop. This information sent Hikari to spend only half and hour- a small town like Karasuyama-2 didn't offer to a lot of places to go shopping- until she located Rei and Naoko at a clothing store that was fairly priced, but was for Naoko and Hikari on the pricey side of their budgets.

Hikari had entered fearing that maybe Naoko was going to use Rei's money…if she had any, to pay for her clothes. What it had turned out was Naoko genuinely trying to give Rei a new look, similar in style to her garb from last night, but distantly something more her style. But Hikari still didn't trust Naoko, the two of them just didn't see eye to eye on some matters. Hikari the straight-as-an-arrow and Naoko the sporty athletic tomboy who seemed to enjoy the thrills that came with annoying or teasing Hikari whenever she was alone with her.

"Calm down Hikari, even after I pitched it to Rei, she agreed on the idea of new clothes"

"Picked out by you?"

"I have better taste"

"I've known her longer"

The two of them would be at each other's throats all day if this continued and the two returned their attention to the dressing cubical that Rei was haphazardly changing in. She took her time, but soon enough Rei exited, thankfully in something that even Hikari could approve. What was really clear was Naoko was a fashion expert of sorts and was trying to make sure the class representative knew that. Rei was wearing something similar to before, Cotton dark blue and black, and while it was clear Naoko was sticking to a theme, Hikari couldn't see a reason to disagree with the choice in colors. But Hikari couldn't be left undefeated.

"Why are you going with blue?" Hikari started

"It goes with her hair" Naoko replied predictably

"But dark blue and aqua don't go well" Hikari volleyed her second round "did you try silver?"

Rei simply stood there wondering first why they started complaining the moment she left the changing cubical. All morning she had been with Naoko alone until Hikari showed up. She had agreed to the idea mainly because of her previous thought this morning when she got up. It was true that Rei only had clothes suitable for home, and what she was wearing before were her only really suitable clothes for going out and having a normal life. Because of these factors, Rei had agreed and for the past several hours, she has towed along in Naoko's wake to three stores now wondering if Naoko had a clue what was best suited for her.

She had seemed to pick things that looked similar at a start; she had experimented with every base color, discovering along the way that Rei didn't work in the color red, that she didn't mind green, but she always looked…innocent and quaint in blue. Yellow was too loud for Rei, even Naoko knew that and the one experiment at pink only resulted in a laughing fit from the tomboy that it took her all of five minutes to recover her composure.

While Rei stood their awaiting comments she had been receiving all morning from Naoko about her look, with Hikari here now, she was about to witness a very different kind of battle. Not as bloody or violent neither as an Evangelion-angel fight nor as tense or heart pounding as a street race like the one last night; this was two women's egos exchanging shots in a general melee that promised not to be pleasant.

"Silver? Are you joking?!" Naoko replied in surprise "how depressing do you want to look"

"It's not grey, its silver"

"No, its depressing that's what it is"

"What Rei needs is cool colors; dark green and whites"

"She already wears that at school you dummy, what she needs is blues and black"

"Black? Who is being depressing now?"

"You got a better idea?"

"Yes, have you tried earth colors?"

"What, so she looks like she was rolling in the mud?"

Rei just stood there, wondering if there was really a need for this on going fight, just to decide on what clothes she should wear. What was wrong with her original clothes anyway? Aqua blue wool jumper and black trousers, they were pretty much the base of her. Without even attempting to listen in, she had decided that the argument was not something she could learn from, she wondered off on her own, returning to the stall where she saw something that caught her interest, but she couldn't really say anything to Naoko who seemed so engrossed on picking clothes for her that attempting to ask might have gotten a sharp rebuke.

Rei despite her lack of attention to the argument had taken some of the things Hikari and Naoko said, and complied that to the morning lesson so far, looking towards the shelves, she picked out her own selection and returned the cubical. She stripped down again and changed her clothes the ones she picked out for herself, a few minutes later, she emerged from the cubical wearing a dark silver Skirt that went almost down to her knee and a white-silver long sleeve cotton top. Navy blue knee length socks finished the look. It wasn't cold enough to put on a jacket, which she had picked out a dark blue one. Standing there in her new outfit, she tuned back into the argument that had never even stopped.

"Hikari, maybe it's because Rei doesn't look good in red…it clashes with her hair too much"

"I'm not saying deep red, I'm saying lighter, like pink"

"Oh, you've got to be kidding!" Naoko almost burst into laughter "trust me; she doesn't look good in pink!"

"Um…you two?"

"What?" both of them turned their heads and both were shocked to find that Rei was not dressed in the outfit that Naoko had selected for her anymore

"Naoko-san…I know you like the other outfit, but I was wondering…how do I look in this?"

Both of them were wide eyed and shocked, both at themselves for not noticing that Rei had walked off, changed, but that Rei actually looked… cool in that. Naoko suddenly wondered how the hell she had missed it; it was the icy cool look that made Rei her…and Hikari was right cool dark colors and white worked for her…not that she would ever want to admit that. Both of them looked at each other and decided that their ensuing five minutes of argument had only proven how much of an idiot they both were.

"It looks great…" Naoko first spoke

"Yeah…but should try a few dresses" Hikari replied, really referring to the type that she was wearing, one could wear over a shirt under as sleeves.

In the end, Rei left the store with her outfit she managed to work out, the previous dark-blue black one that she was wearing and several navy blue to silver dresses that Hikari had recommended. In all, a rather quick end to a very long process that amazingly Rei was able to afford. Misato had given Rei some money for going out, but the amount had until now exceeded the required. Hikari had wondered if maybe it was an indirect message from the two older women for Rei to buy her own clothes, if so; it had finally been accomplished.

The three of them walked back down the road, deciding for the rest of the day to just hang out by the boardwalk and remembering that Rei not only needed to dress like a normal person, but following on from Shinji hardened lessons, Rei also needed to learn how to be a normal person. Hikari didn't quite know how to describe the situation, it was odd, for the first time ever; Rei was doing something she considered normal- well, not normal as in every day tasks, but something that was considered normal on the social pane. The three of them had ended up, strangely enough, at the restaurant that Naoko worked at.

The tomboy remembered the last time Rei visited this place how she expertly lied her way through her questioning and walked away without so much as a smirk. She did remember however how Shinji felt like he was having a heart attack and felt afraid of the things she could have said…that was of course before Naoko found out about the whole ordeal, no less then a few days after he had promised her to explain it all…one day. Naoko wondered how Shinji would react when he learnt that she now knew.

On a dare of sorts by Naoko, Rei had gotten a chocolate milkshake while both Hikari and Naoko had ordered something more…adult, though on seeing the milkshake, Hikari had regretted the choice she made and for once wished she hadn't she didn't feel a need to act mature around girls her own age. Naoko regretted too, but then again it was because she was paying…Hikari's enforced punishment for dragging Rei along shopping, even if it turned out on a positive note.

Rei didn't quite know how to describe the situation she was in now, no less than half an hour ago, these two 'friends' following her were at each others throats and binding ego into a competitive edge and now they were like friends for life. How did she even belong to the same gender as these two? Rei just couldn't work it out, the strange attributes of girls socializing with one another was something that Shinji just couldn't ever teach her, and without any prior experience to it, Rei was positively confused. It helped that Hikari and Naoko understood now the whole reason why this was so, but it didn't quite helps her out in starting to learn these seemingly normal interactions.

As a result of this line of thought, Rei thought about the day so far, it had been one where somehow it had created its own objectives as she went; first leaving the house, then going to the store, then going to the café, then talking to Sayuri who offered her some contrarian advice on how to move on from yesterday. From there she ran into Naoko and later Hikari- and did what Naoko told her in some detail what normal teenager girls do on a weekend. Rei had thought that this seemed a strange thing to say, after all Asisaka was working right now. Now, after the several hours of shopping, it was just after three in the afternoon and they were sitting around a table under the shade of an umbrella and drinking dairy drinks and mini-cakes that the store sold.

It felt so alien to say that Rei could agree, or even say itself she enjoyed today…that it took her a full five minutes of quietly sipping at her milkshake and thinking at light speed before she even came close to matching of her feelings to the moment, it wasn't that she couldn't tell what her own emotions were like. She had the subtle twinge of tiredness that came from them walking around today after last night. But Rei also felt the almost unknown appreciation to be considered one of a group and the appreciation of help that naoko had gone to before, and the fun she had doing it. Having fun? Was that it? Did she really have fun today? Everyone had their own idea about fun, but was hanging around her own age group, doing the things they did and sharing an afternoon meal, and talking about everyday things fun?

'It could be' Rei told herself 'even for all the things I've learnt since moving here, am I truly enjoying my new life here?'

Rei didn't quite get the time to think that one over. Before Naoko could ask Rei how she was enjoying her milkshake, Hikari's mobile phone started ringing, it was song that didn't make a hell of a lot of sense to her since it had been without vocals and sounded sort of techno. None the less Hikari in ten seconds picked it up, Naoko and Rei remained silent, staring at Hikari wondering who was calling her.

"Hello?"

The other end of the call could be heard by neither Rei nor Naoko and so it relied pretty much on guessing what was really happening.

"Yes…she's with me and Naoko…we went shopping…clothes…I'm serious, we really did…"

The laugh that followed could be heard from the speaker indicated to Rei who was calling, it was Misato. Hikari continued talking, now ignorant of the smirk that Naoko was giving her.

"Yes…she had money…I see…you don't mind that we…okay…yes…okay" Hikari waited before asking "anyway, why did you call?"

Hikari's face changed with the response, but neither Rei nor Naoko could tell what emotion she was feeling.

"that's very good to hear…I'll be right over…yes…goodbye" Hikari replied and hung up, she put her phone away before explaining what that was all about "that was Misato…Shinji just woke up"

* * *

**Author's commentary**

_I finally got around to completing this chapter today. Really been trying to work on another idea but I lost the original document for that and starting over afresh is proving very hard to make a start on. With this chapter, I've finally managed to get the story back on track and now I can start working on the rest of the story. From what I could tell some 6 episodes ago, this will not end by Episode 26, I had hoped it would, but I guess by now I should expect to be extending this to 35. When I drafted the original episode format; I was working by the Japanese Anime season time frame, technically this was a little too optimistic on my part, I just had too much to do with too much story for too little space._

After this chapter, I've decided to start the long overdue process of finally bringing my earlier chapters up to spec and resolving some (hopefully all) the spelling and grammar errors. Much to the concern that some might feel, I'm also going to, not that I expect it would make much of a different; have to change some of the dialogue and remove some spots that just feel out of place now. Since I started writing, my style has changed a lot and as a result, some of the writing now feels like a different story.

This is not to say I'm doing a total rewrite, far from it, but the spelling of character names like Asisaka's (the original spelling is actually for someone's surname apparently) and some very disturbing geography inconsistencies I've made me decide to go back and do the fixes. Why this would concern me is that while its fictional, I think its usually good practice for the story to make sense as well, I have a small txt file that indicates the date of the story chronologically as well as a number of minor details and a map of the town. Having created the txt file after chapter 10 didn't help me and as a result, the txt file doesn't have all the information I wish it had.

They way I've planned to do this is in 3 blocks, block 1 will be chapter 1-4 and will be fixed by the time Episode 21 comes out, Block 2 will be 5-8 and will be fixed by the time Episode 22 comes out, and finally block 3 which will be done by the time Episode 23 is out. Apart from changing the format of my chapter's presentation and the upgrades intended for all the episodes before 13, I hope everyone will still enjoy this series.

**_Nighthawk_Imac_**

July 2nd, 2009


End file.
